Ends with a Horse
by ebfiddler
Summary: It's a race against the clock as the crew tries to discover what Saffron has done to their ship before it's too late. Twelfth story in series.
1. Chapter 1

Ends with a Horse

Part 1a

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_Translations for Chinese and other non-English words in the glossary._

_Rating: My stories are typically PG to PG-13 to occasional R. You will not find detailed descriptions of blood, gore, and sex, but you will find situations appropriate for mature readers, innuendo, implication, and (gasp) swear words. This story is rated PG-13, with a few R-ish scenes (language and mature topics). _

___I'd like to thank my wonderful beta readers, Bytemite and my sister, for taking the time to read this story and for their many helpful comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank TheAmazingDave for help with British slang expressions and usage. I want to thank the many regular readers here and at Fireflyfans for their comments, feedback, and encouragement—and for their patience! This story ended up being a lot longer than I had anticipated, and took longer to write than I imagined it would. (If you want to refresh on the events that led the characters to the place they are at the beginning of this story, the previous story is called What Begins with an Apple.) And I'd like to thank the participants in the ficwriters' forum, whose discussions over the summer jump-started this fic. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the next installment in this series. Now…it's actually not completely done—I'm still working on parts of it. But I decided it was close enough to begin posting…and you'll understand if I have to take a break from a regular posting schedule if I haven't managed to finish the next part by the time we catch up to it, right? :-) Okay, then. Here we go…_

* * *

_What begins with an apple…ends with a horse._

* * *

It was a painful necessity. Much as he might have liked to avoid it, Mal felt it was his duty to inform the crew about his realization. That evil, treacherous, double-crossing snake Saffron (the epithets came automatically at this point) was the saboteur who had planted timed explosive devices on Serenity's navigational equipment and booby-trapped them with a Qianxia detonator—a banned weapon. And she had done it twice.

The first time, the sabotage remained undiscovered until they were deep in space and the ensuing electrical meltdowns had left them without navigational or communication equipment, far off course and out of range of help. Jayne had been blown up by the detonator in the repair attempt, and only good luck and quick thinking had allowed them to recover and make their way to their destination.

This time, Kaylee had discovered the sabotage before they left the dockyard on Beaumonde, and Mal had defused the detonator and removed the explosives. _Saffron was the saboteur_, and he had not known. She had been aboard his ship for _five_ _days_, flying the crew in circles, making them upset with themselves and each other, misdirecting their attention so that they failed to see what she was up to. She'd played them thoroughly, and she'd done it even though they were expecting it, when she'd done it to them before—_twice_—and they all knew she was up to no good.

"Saffron was the saboteur."

"And you just let her go." Zoe's tone was unforgiving.

Mal nodded.

"Told you we shoulda spaced her." Zoe had come close to murdering the 说谎 的 shuōhuǎng de 贱货的 潑婦 jiàn huò de pōfù while she was aboard, but Mal had stopped her. She couldn't understand why. Now, in light of Mal's realization, it seemed to her that this had been a grave mistake.

"That wouldn't do it, Zoe," Mal responded. "Spacing her wouldn'ta answered the questions."

"What questions?" Zoe waited a beat, but Mal didn't answer. "Did you even ask?" she demanded.

"She'd only have lied anyhow." Mal shifted uncomfortably under Zoe's glare. "Spacing her ain't the answer. Don't take care of the problem."

"Takes care of it pretty permanently, if you ask me."

"No, it don't," Mal insisted, countering Zoe's formidable look with one of his own. He weren't no slouch in the glaring department, neither. "Saffron ain't the problem."

Zoe's look spoke volumes, and he read it easily. It began with _I can't believe you still got a soft spot for that __潑婦__jian huo de __pōfù_and ended with _Are you insane, sir? Or just stupid?_

"A little of both, as you know perfectly well," Mal responded, "but I'm not wrong. Really," he reiterated, "it wouldn'ta helped, to have spaced her."

"Woulda helped plenty," Zoe retorted.

The whole crew was silently observing the unusual public disagreement between the Captain and his first mate. "You don't actually believe Saffron was acting on her own, do you?" Mal asked her rhetorically.

Zoe stood straight, almost like a soldier at attention.

"Think about it, Zoe. Those tools she had. Programmable fuse filaments. Security overrides. Access codes. She knew the plans for this boat by heart—knew where to hide her stuff, knew which access panel led to the crawl space, knew which systems to override, knew how to hack into the security."

"You think she had accomplices off-ship."

_She absolutely had accomplices off-ship._ "That's her protection. She disappears, they come after us."

"Have to track us down first, sir," Zoe interjected with some heat.

Mal gave Zoe a glare, and even some of the less astute crewmembers could tell what he meant by it.

"You think she planted a tracker on us," Zoe stated, and Mal nodded, folding his arms. "Where?"

_Ain't that the gorram one-million-credit question. _"Zoe, she spent the last four days planting screw-up devices of every description in every corner of this boat. She was prepped for this mission, very well-prepped." He paused before he delivered what he considered to be the real kicker. "She had Qianxia proximity detonators."

"Sir…"

"_Qianxia_ proximity detonators, Zoe. Banned since before the war. Not nobody has access to that kinda 狗屎 gǒushǐ unless they're Alliance. Alliance military got stockpiles from before the war."

"Could get one from a private arms dealer," was Jayne's unexpected contribution.

Mal turned to face him. "You know something about it, Jayne? Private arms dealers sellin' Qianxia proximity detonators?"

"No, Mal. Not nothin' specific. Just know, from when I was runnin' with Marco. We used ta meet up with some of that kind of folk, from time to time. Some arms dealers ain't too particular about whether what they're sellin' is banned or nothin'."

"Saffron was married to that Alliance bio-weapons expert," Kaylee reminded them. "She might have insider—"

Zoe's knee-jerk reaction was swift. "That civilian-killing, city-destroying, 无用 wúyòng excuse for human being! Durran Haymer ain't nothin' more than an officially sanctioned terrorist."

"Durran Haymer is the Director of the Bioweapons Defense Institute," Inara supplied. "He was promoted to the directorship six years ago, shortly after the war. But before the war, he put in eight years as lab director, specializing in behavioral modifications research."

"You _know_ him personal-like?" Mal inquired sharply, shifting his intense blue-eyed look to her face. The entire crew watched with concern. Mal and Inara had spent the last two weeks at odds, very seriously out-of-sorts with one another. The altercation that led to their blow-up had resounded throughout the ship, and the crew tensed with apprehension, fearing another storm. Still, most of the crewmembers were very well aware that the Captain and Inara had spent a good part of the previous night "reconciling"—if the raised voices coming from Inara's shuttle could be considered a measure of that. In any other couple, the love-bites visible on the necks and faces of both of them would have been a sure indication that they'd worked out their frustrations and differences with one another. But with the Captain and Inara, things were always _complicated_, and so, despite the obvious signs, the crew did not assume that they were back to smooth sailing. The potential for another explosion was still there.

"No, Mal," she answered, and some of the tension eased from his shoulders, a visible relaxation. "He was never my client, if that's what you're asking. But I had heard of him, even before the Lassiter job. Back when I was still at House Madrassa on Sihnon." Mal was still regarding her with an intense look. She wasn't entirely sure if it had more to do with the personal information she was revealing, or the information as it related to Saffron. "It was my business to know the backgrounds and antecedents of government officials and business leaders on the House Madrassa Client List," she explained, "the better to navigate the public events, soirees, and political salons, to which a Companion might be invited. I could do further research…"

"Thought Companions don't kiss and tell."

"I'm not saying I am at liberty to disclose confidential information, should I find any. But perhaps I can find out if the Guild _does_ keep a confidential file on Durran Haymer. And given Saffron's association with him, it may be that I can find a record of _her_ as well. Particularly if she also had any Guild training. Although Buddha knows under what alias she might have studied."

"Be useful to know more about Saffron's history with Haymer. Likely she worked contacts made through him, to get at the high tech and banned weapons." Mal unconsciously touched the place on the side of his jaw where Inara had marked him the previous night. "Worked 'em, slept with 'em. Hell, she's probably married to half the Alliance top brass, too. 她是公共汽車 Tā shì gōng gòng qì chē. Slept and conned her way into all kinds of confidential information, I don't doubt. And I'd hazard a guess she's had access to higher levels than I previously figured." There were murmurs of agreement. "She's a professional con. She enjoys workin' on her own, but I don't reckon she's in this game just for her own amusement. Somebody's payin' her, and that's somebody with high-security access."

"So she's workin' for the Alliance." Zoe looked to him to confirm her suspicions.

"Could be," Mal replied, "but…"

"I think she's working for Blue Sun," Ip interjected unexpectedly.

"What makes you think so?" Mal questioned sharply.

Ip glanced over at River, as if for reassurance, but her mind was elsewhere. "It was River's idea, actually. When it was my turn to escort her, River suggested that if she tried to...I dunno, _do_ something, I should use one of the Blue Sun hand signals to—"

"There are Blue Sun _hand signals?"_ Mal exclaimed.

"Well, sure. If you're in a meeting, and you need verification that the person you're talking to is authorized to hear information of a certain security clearance level, you—"

"_You_ have a high-security clearance?"

"No, no, nothing like that, Captain. I have—or _had_—a rather low-level security clearance. But yes, I did handle some sensitive corporate information, and as such, I had a certain security clearance level. Which means I was given passwords and signals to identify my security clearance level to other Blue Sun employees."

"Kind of like a secret handshake." Everybody looked at Jayne, who continued, "Like in them secret agent spy shows on the cortex. The one guy uses the secret handshake, then they all know he's really the secret agent, an' it's okay, they don't have to shoot 'im." Jayne was amazed that none of the others knew this. "Don't none of y'all _never _watch nothin' on the cortex?" He rolled his eyes.

"So what did you do?" Mal queried, ignoring Jayne's rhetorical question.

"Well, she tried to get to me…like she tried to get to everybody, Captain," Ip continued. "So I flashed the 'Blue Sun Employee—Blue Level Security Access' hand sign—"

"How's that go?" Jayne asked, all curious.

"It's like—" Ip began openly, before stopping himself. He tried to glare briefly at Jayne, who glared back with interest. "Never mind. She stopped in her tracks, and gave the countersign."

"So what does _that_ mean?" Mal asked.

"Well, Blue is one of the lower levels. Corporate confidential. It would give you access to proprietary and non-public information, but don't go thinking that it's a top secret clearance or something. The secret military projects, corporate security—heck, even the personnel office—all have their own secret signs that I don't even know."

"So she works for Blue Sun?"

"Yes. Well, or maybe she used to. Or she learned the sign from someone. I didn't do a password challenge, because I don't know what's current myself. They change it every month. So I guess I don't really know for sure."

There was silence for a moment. "What did she say, after the sign?" the Captain inquired.

"Nothing. She didn't say a word after that. Just proceeded to the shower, and back, without further incident."

"他妈的 Tāmādē," the Captain swore under his breath. _Blue Level, Blue Sun, Blue Hands. _There was altogether too much _blue_ in all this for his liking. _Too much Blue—_sounded like something River would say. A cold feeling settled into his stomach at the thought that Saffron might have been working with Blue Sun somehow, or perhaps even Blue Sun's secret operatives, the Blue Hands.

He turned toward Ip. "Why didn't you tell me about this right away?"

"I tried, Captain. Several times. You cut me off, you told me to mind my own business, you said—"

"Aw, never mind." Mal recognized that he had been his own worst enemy in this regard. He'd dismissed out of hand the notion that Ip might be effective against Saffron, and had told the man in so many words to shut up and keep out of the way. Still, this evidence that Saffron had aught to do with Blue Sun was mighty disturbing, to say the least. Alliance weren't the only people with deep pockets, access to private information, and the unscrupulousness to use it against him. Ip had once told him that Blue Sun Marketing kept a record of everything he bought, through their rewards program—every navsat, every protein packet, every gorram piece of toilet paper and dental floss. What might they do with that knowledge, combined with Saffron's spying, if she was working for them? He turned toward the other person who had known about Ip's little stunt.

"You see this, River?" Zoe beat him to the question. River seemed to be particularly sensitive to Blue Sun's touch: she seemed to know instinctively when Blue Sun's operatives were involved, and most of Serenity's crew was quite convinced that she could read minds. River had also been the one person aboard who had most effectively stood in Saffron's way, and was least swayed by her subversions. Surely River would have known, if Saffron were working with the Blue Hands? "What do you know about this stunt?"

"_There may be in the cup  
__A spider steeped, and one may drink, depart,  
__And yet partake no venom."_

"What the ruttin' 地狱 dìyù is that s'posed ta—?" Jayne began, but River continued speaking, cutting him off.

"_A sad tale's best for winter."_ Her earnest gaze took in Mal and Inara.

"Ummm…" was Mal's decidedly un-profound contribution to the conversation. River's speech had him flummoxed, and considering how many cryptic word puzzles she'd tossed his way lately, that was sayin' something. A glance at Zoe told him that she didn't get the bit about the spider, neither. He looked around, to see if anyone else had fared better than he had with the puzzle. Blank expressions, for the most part—except Inara, who appeared to have a notion about what River meant, but she was still chewin' it over.

"Why? Is it winter?" Jayne asked the room in general.

"Sure as the spinning of worlds it's winter somewhere in the 'Verse," Mal answered, rolling his eyes a bit as he allowed himself to be side-tracked. "Ain't no season in space, and won't be 'til we land on a world."

"_Well said, Hermione."_

Mal gave River a strange look. Had she just called him _Hermione?_

River was nodding at him. "_She's _Leontes," she clarified, indicating Inara.

"Wait a minute. Who's Hermione?" Jayne asked, half a beat behind. "She just call the Cap 'Hermione'?"

"She thought her pond was fished by her next neighbour." River's gaze was now fixed upon Inara.

"_He's_ Hermione?" Jayne pointed at Mal. "That's a girl's name. What—?"

"_I have drunk, and seen the spider."_

Simon had his mouth open like he did when he was about to stand on his hind legs and pontificate; Kaylee was looking a mite creepified about the spider; Ip was speechless for a change; Inara appeared to be still workin' it through; and Zoe's impassive expression told Mal that she was getting mighty fed up with this 废话 fèihuà, and was itching to step in and bring the conversation back on track. So he did. "River, this ain't on topic. What's this all got to do with Saffron?"

"_It is a bawdy planet."_

"Don't see the relevance, River." His puzzlement was giving way to impatience.

"Where's the bawdy planet?" Jayne asked, his interest piqued. "Ya mean the one where Inara's Training House is at?"

"Okay. How's about we get back to the point. Which is—"

"Can we go there?" Jayne was still a few beats behind.

"Jaaa—yne!" Zoe's voice carried a warning, as did her look. _Cut the chatter. Cap'n's trying to make a point here._

The silent message flew by Jayne's head, unnoticed. "I'd like ta spend a few days on a bawdy planet. Or, hell, a whole week—"

"_A snapper-up of unconsidered trifles." _This time, River's gaze was directed at Jayne, and it diverted his stream-of-conscious.

"哎呀 Āiyā," he grinned, "Crazy's even startin' to make sense. 'Cause I love trifle. Snap it up any time. 'Specially when the fruit and spongecakes been soaked in whisky or rum. I remember—"

"Jayne, your mouth is runnin'."

"_We have been  
__deceived in thy integrity, deceived  
__in that which seems so,"  
_River thundered dramatically, startling them all. She fixed Jayne with a stare, and into the silence she declaimed with vivid intensity,  
"_You lie, you lie:  
__I say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee."_

"Uh…is Camillo another one a' Saffron's names?" Jayne asked, in an odd voice.

Mal gave him a sharp look. Jayne gulped. 啊Ǎ, the man looked nervous. Or…guilty. _Huh. What was goin' on with—?_

"She's a liar," River addressed the Captain, drawing his attention. "A liar and a thief. Feels no remorse."

"I ain't a girl," Jayne objected faintly, but luckily for him, his words were drowned out as everyone else chimed in with their approval of River's sentiment and their own assessments of Saffron.

"不悔恨的 潑婦 Bùhuǐhènde pōfù," Simon remarked.

"Lying 狐狸精 húli jīng," Inara snarled.

"贱货泼妇 Jiàn huò pōfù," Zoe contributed.

"She's the 所有的妓女的母亲在地狱 suǒyǒu de jìnǚ de mǔqīn zài dìyù." Kaylee spoke with surprising vehemence.

"She's all that," Mal agreed. "She's a professional con, and there ain't a one of us what was able to see through all her nefarious 屁話 pìhuà. Fact is, despite there bein' eight of us on this boat on the look-out for her and her evil ways, the only thing I'm sure of is that she pulled a fast one on us again. We gotta go over the whole boat, inside and out, every room, every system—"

"Ya think she managed to plant some kinda screw-up device, despite all our watching?" Jayne asked.

"It's a dead certainty."

"Thought we found a bunch of those things already."

"We found half a dozen, and a few more she had stashed but not yet deployed. What I'm wondering is how many we missed." _And how much it's gonna hurt when we find out_, he added privately. "Only question is, how many, what kind, and where did she plant them? We gotta go over Serenity with a fine-tooth comb."

"Ya mean a fine tooth_brush_," corrected Jayne.

"I said fine-tooth _comb._"

"I heard what ya said, Mal, I ain't deaf. But any 傻瓜 shǎguā knows you don't _comb_ your teeth. Ya brush 'em. Ain't never heard of no one _combing_ their teeth."

Mal shook his head. "Right, people. Let's get to work. Comb, or—" looking pointedly at Jayne, "_brush_ the ship for gifts left by Saffron."

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

说谎 的 shuōhuǎng de [lying]

贱货的 潑婦 jiàn huò de pōfù [floozy]

_潑婦__jian huo de __pōfù__[cheap floozy]_

狗屎 gǒushǐ [shit]

无用 wúyòng [worthless]

她是公共汽車 Tā shì gōng gòng qì chē [She's a slut (lit., "She's a public bus," i.e. "She gets around, and everyone has had a ride")]

他妈的 Tāmādē [Damn]

地狱 dìyù [hell]

废话 fèihuà [nonsense]

哎呀 Āiyā [Damn]

啊Ǎ [Eh]

不悔恨的 潑婦 Bùhuǐhènde pōfù [Remorseless harridan]

狐狸精 húli jīng [vixen, bitch (lit., "fox spirit")]

贱货泼妇 Jiàn huò pōfù [Cheap floozy]

所有的妓女的母亲在地狱 suǒyǒu de jìnǚ de mǔqīn zài dìyù [mother of all the whores in hell]

屁話 pìhuà [nonsense]

傻瓜 shǎguā [idiot]

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_A/N: A nice, long opening chapter for you. I invite you to leave your comments and review the story. Thanks!_


	2. Chapter 2

Ends with a Horse

Part 1b

_Exit Antigonus, pursued by a bear._

* * *

. . .

"…Okay, so you each got a portion of the ship to survey for evidence of Saffron's tender care," Mal concluded, "and you're each responsible for searchin' your own quarters, 'cause you know best whether anything's been disturbed."

Jayne breathed a huge sigh of relief—or he woulda, 'cept he didn't want to draw attention to himself. Luckily, the Doc stepped right in and drew the spotlight his way.

"Good. Because I don't even _want_ to know the source of the noxious effluvium exuding from Jayne's bunk."

"Hey! There ain't no obnoxious floozy intruding from my bunk," he growled. "Saffron didn't never even go in there." He wasn't really much concerned if everybody thought that what the Doc said was true. It was more that he knew that they all expected him to growl, so he did, so as not to draw undue attention. He was bein' about as smooth and subtle as a bear in a china shop, but it was his experience that when you were as uncouth as a bear, the best bet was just to act exactly like a bear was expected ta do, and folk would disregard you.

Simon opened his mouth, gasped, shook his head in disbelief, closed his mouth, bugged his eyes out, raised his hands in the air, started flappin' 'em—the regular dance he did whenever Jayne set him off. It was gorram funny to watch him do it. Ordinarily, Jayne woulda played the doc-baitin' game for longer, but given the circumstances, he decided to let the moment slide on by. _Don't wanna overplay it._

"Just check, Jayne," the Captain insisted. "She coulda—"

"Yeah, yeah, Cap, I'll do it. Don't worry your pretty little head, Hermione." Now Mal scowled, and between him and Simon's dramatic performance, no one really cared about his bunk no more, and no one was really paying attention to Jayne neither.

Zoe hid her snicker of amusement at Mal's discomfiture, gathered herself together, and limped out of the dining room to begin her searches. Jayne lumbered after her, figuring he'd laid enough smoke screen. Because he didn't want anyone, particularly the Captain, to know what he really had in his bunk. Because _that_…was supposed to stay hidden. For now, anyways.

River watched them leave. _"Exit Antigonus, pursued by a bear."_

. . .

Inara carefully checked her shuttle. She didn't believe Saffron had been in it at all, but since she hadn't spent the entire five-day journey to Hektor barricaded inside it, she had to consider the possibility that Mal was right.

She lifted up each and every item from the shelves, searched underneath, moved the furniture. River's references to _The Winter's Tale_ hadn't escaped her notice. It was not her favorite Shakespeare play, but she remembered it very well, because of the circumstances in which she'd first seen it performed.

It was very early in her first summer as a fully-fledged Companion, and her client was a recently divorced man. They went to Shakespeare in 玉叶 Yùyè Park, put on by the Sihnon Shakespeare Company, with some of the most notable stage actors of the day in the leading roles—the great Jakob Habib playing opposite Sinead Wang. The fashionable people of Sihnon were all there to see and be seen. It was part of the summer social milieu in the great City of Light.

After walking with her client on the Promenade and the obligatory mixing with political, business, and fashion notables, Inara spread the silken blanket on the jewel-green grass, and they settled down together to eat and watch the play. The picnic was pleasant, and any initial awkwardness in the tête-à-tête was quickly eased by the good wine and elegant repast, placed in the picnic basket by House Madrassa's capable kitchen staff.

As soon as darkness fell, the play began. Inara remembered being immediately drawn in, first in watching such masterful actors ply their craft, then in the developing story. King Leontes begged his childhood friend Polixenes to extend his visit. Polixenes declined. He thanked his friend for his kind hospitality, but he'd been away from his home kingdom for nine months already, and needed to be getting back. Leontes then implored his pregnant wife Hermione to persuade his friend to stay. She succeeded where he did not, and Inara enjoyed watching a capable woman win her way with words, using techniques a Companion might have envied. Why had Inara's professor of rhetoric never mentioned this play? But no sooner had Hermione persuaded Polixenes to change his mind and stay a while longer, than Leontes was seized with irrational jealousy—believing his wife and his friend were lovers. He had _"drained the cup, and seen the spider." _

The man was not content simply to get angry, confront his wife, and listen to her rebuttal. No. He went completely 疯了 fēngle. He ordered his servants to kill his friend; he publicly accused his wife of infidelity, threw her in prison, and declared the unborn child was not his. It only got worse. Leontes ordered a servant to take the newborn and abandon it in the wilderness, and only after his loved ones died broken-hearted, did he cease raging, and begin to repent of his rashness. Inara remembered her conversation with the client during the intermission.

"_The husband is unreasonably jealous. It's perfectly obvious to _everybody_ that Hermione is perfectly innocent—and yet he persists with this madness. She's simply being a good hostess, and trying to please her husband, and he willfully misinterprets everything!" Inara exclaimed. She had not yet learned to temper her declarations of opinion, and the behavior of the character Leontes was extremely provoking. "He's behaving like a complete __骚驴__sāolǘ__," she declared. "The level of jealousy he displays is just insane."_

"_I think it's very realistic," the client replied quietly._

"_Oh, surely, Shakespeare was exaggerating here," Inara responded, "for dramatic effect. Or rather, melodramatic. No one acts like that in real life."_

"_Actually," the client told her seriously, "the character reminds me of my ex."_

And River had just called her Leontes. Insanely jealous.

_Was_ she?

She'd seen Mal touch and kiss Zoe in the common area lounge, murmuring things to her. And snippets of an overheard conversation the two of them had on the bridge—an uproarious conversation about Mal's sex life, as far as she could tell—just seemed to corroborate her conclusion. There was a real basis for her anger. She hadn't pulled those things out of thin air. It wasn't unreasonable, was it? She couldn't possibly be compared to that raving lunatic in the play.

But Mal had a reply for every one of her questions. _"We ain't lovers,"_ he'd stated directly, when she asked about him and Zoe. And when she accused him of fathering Zoe's baby? "Wash's_ baby._ Not_ mine_." He'd even renewed his declaration to her. _"I love you. And when I gave you my heart, I gave you everything. _All_ of me. Ain't no part of me I'm holding back for somebody else." _Then he demanded that she exercise fair judgment: _"Don't damn me without a fair trial."_

Had she given him a fair trial? Or had she—as River implied—acted like Leontes, and condemned first without listening to the evidence?

She had isolated herself. She could admit that now. She had avoided talking with her Serenity family, because it seemed to her they all took Mal's part. She didn't want to hear what they said, if none of them could be objective.

Kaylee came to her to plead the Captain's case. Told her straightforwardly, _"Cap'n ain't seein' no one else. He ain't that kind of man."_ Kaylee was passionate in her defense of Mal. _"I been on this boat for nearly five years now, Inara, and you know how many women I seen him pursue in that time? One." _Inara believed that Kaylee was mistaken, even though she was no longer convinced that the "one" Kaylee referred to was Zoe.

River also came to her, and pled the Captain's case more obliquely. _"Megaera and Alecto. Tisophone not so much." _Interpreting what River meant was sometimes beyond Inara's capabilities, but the reference to the Furies, the Jealous One and the Angry One, was clear enough. And now she was calling her Leontes—crazy jealous. Had she imagined it? Was there was nothing more than friendship between Mal and Zoe? Like Leontes, had she gathered around her only the evidence that supported a false conclusion?

Zoe herself had come to try to talk to her about Mal, and a mighty provoking conversation that was. Now Inara was wondering. Had she misinterpreted what Zoe was saying?

She thought back to the tea-time talk with Zoe. At the time it had seemed only to confirm her suspicions that Mal and Zoe were having an affair. Now she reconsidered the conversation, this time attempting to view it clearly, instead of through the lens of slighted love. Inara had the skills to read people's body language and subtext. Why had she not used them?

Zoe had sought her out, to enlist her help. _"Inara,"_ she said, _"He _listens_ to you. He pays attention to what you do and say. _You're_ the one can influence him."_ It wasn't the first time Zoe had asked her to exert her influence. She remembered how Zoe came to her some months back, when Mal liberated the slaves on 泥球 Ní Qiú and suffered a head injury in the noble-hearted but dangerous exploit. _"Inara, I need your help in managing the Captain. You're the only one he'll listen to….He has been guided by your influence ever since you stepped on this boat." _ Was Zoe simply trying to tell her: _You have more influence over Mal than anybody else, including me._

Inara brought to mind some of Zoe's other words, and she saw now that they could support this idea. _"I've known the man for fourteen years. He's my best friend."—"When you stepped aboard this vessel, you kindled something in him. Part of him that had been dead since Serenity Valley started to come back to life."_ Viewed in this light, Zoe's reminiscences of Mal in the difficult times that followed the war took on a different meaning. Zoe and Mal weren't lovers. They lived together in the slums of Hera, penniless and starving, because they were _family_. Zoe teased Mal like he was her brother—her headstrong, foolish, much-admired younger brother. And here was a new idea: Zoe _bossed him around_ for the same reason. She told him _'yes, sir'_ and meant _'hell, no'_: she was the only person Inara knew who could actually veto one of Mal's 神经病 shén jīng bìng plans by telling him 'yes, sir.' Even Zoe's stories of Mal's popularity with the women in their army unit in the war now struck her in a completely different light. Zoe was like the sister who looked at him and saw not the idol that other women admired. Zoe saw—and never hesitated to point out—his feet of clay. Mal had simply laughed when she asked him if he and Zoe were lovers. No wonder. Maybe it was as absurd as asking if he slept with his bossy elder sister who reminded him a dozen times a day what a gorram idiot he was.

Mal and Zoe's recent disagreement fit this pattern. They'd disagreed in public, before everyone, about a matter of ship's business. It wasn't anything like a lovers' quarrel. If she were to be objective, she would say it was the first officer (and bossy elder sister) telling her captain (her brother) that he was full of it, and the captain (younger brother) telling his first officer to stow it. _Hmm._ So Mal and Zoe weren't _always_ in perfect harmony, after all.

Thinking it over, Inara recognized how little she'd actually _communicated_ with Zoe during the course of that tea. She'd turned inward and stopped paying attention. She'd focused on herself and her feelings—her apparently misguided feelings. She thought of the one important question she _had_ asked Zoe: _"Do you love him?"_ Zoe had answered, _"Of course,"_ without the slightest hesitation, without breaking eye contact, right after telling Inara that she knew Mal wanted to marry her. _Of course_, Inara reflected now. _Of _course_ a woman loves her brother._

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

玉叶 Yùyè [Jade Leaf]

疯了 fēngle [crazy]

骚驴sāolǘ [jackass]

泥球 Ní Qiú [name of a world]

神经病 shén jīng bìng [insane]

* * *

_A/N: To all the readers who were wondering where Inara was coming from with all the crazy jealousy in the last two stories: Well, she was wrong, as we knew all along. But sometimes it takes a while for a person who has been wrong to admit it to themselves, and take steps to right things; and sometimes it takes the right kind of catalyst, for a person to make realizations and get some insight into their own behavior. It looks like River's references to A Winter's Tale by Shakespeare have finally brought the issue home to Inara, by letting her see it from another perspective and remember her own reaction to this sort of behavior, when she saw it from the outside. I'm interested in reading your comments and reviews._


	3. Chapter 3

Ends with a Horse, Part 2a

_Saffron's visit has left lasting damage._

* * *

A few hours later, after checking on the situation in his own bunk, Jayne looked in on the bridge to find Zoe, River and Mal still hard at work checking Serenity's flight computers and electronic systems for signs of sabotage.

"Found anything?"

Mal shook his head, with a thoroughly discontented look on his face.

"Well, that's good, ain't it? Y'all been lookin' on them computers for hours now."

"Yeah, we been lookin', and it ain't a bit good that we ain't found nothin'," Mal replied. "We _know_ Saffron was on this bridge at least twice. Once when she come up through the crawl space, when River was here—and that's all manner of disturbing, in and of itself, 'cause if Saffron had access to the crawl space, then there's all manner of places on this boat we gotta search afore we can sound the all-clear. River stopped her, that time—"

River gave Jayne an evil grin and pointed her finger, gun-fashion, directly at him.

"—but I know for a fact she was here one other time, unsupervised."

"How d'ya know that, Cap?" Jayne inquired.

"She got into my bunk, Jayne," Mal answered. Recollections of discovering Saffron naked in his bed came to mind, and he willed himself not to blush. Apparently without success, since Zoe was giving him one of _those_ looks, and River started tittering uncontrollably.

"Wish she woulda come naked into my bunk, 'stead a your'n," Jayne said with a smirk.

"No you don't," Mal shot back. "Naked had nothin' to do with it. It was just a cover-up." Gorrammit, he was turnin' red anyway.

"A cover-up, sir?" Zoe inquired archly. "Hmm…a naked cover-up. Bears some thinkin' on."

"_Bares_ some—" River began.

"闭嘴 Bìzuǐ!" Mal retorted, testily. "Y'all are missing the point, here. I don't think for a minute Saffron was in my bunk 'cause she wanted my.…Point is, she searched my bunk, coulda stole something I ain't thought of missing yet, coulda planted something I ain't found yet. And she did it _when my hatch was locked._" He let it sink in for a moment. "She came up here to the bridge to override the lock. That means she accessed the main computers, overrode security, and coulda got into just about anything in our flight hardware and software. Kaylee's gonna come up here, soon as she's done scouring the engine room, and look for anything suspicious in the hardware line. It's up to us to find the software sabotage. She coulda planted a virus or a worm, a Trojan horse, some kind of malware…"

"Malware," echoed Jayne. He turned to Zoe and River. "Is that, like, the Cap's personal software or something?"

Zoe rolled her eyes. "No, it's destructive software."

"From _mal_. Bad. In the Latin." River saw Jayne wasn't getting it, and repeated, "_Mal_ is 'bad' in Latin."

"'Course I'm bad in Latin," Mal quipped. "Never studied the gorram language. I'm fluent in Chinese and English, of course. Even know a few phrases in—"

"Cap'n," Kaylee's voice over the comm interrupted. "I found something that don't belong here in the engine room. Wanna come have a look?"

. . .

"It's the only important piece of equipment in the engine room that she could actually reach from the door. 'Cause believe me, Cap'n, I didn't let her get no farther than the threshold."

"I'm sure you didn't, Kaylee," Mal replied as he inspected the thin strip of electronics that Kaylee had removed from the switchboard near the press regulator. "She musta been prepared ahead of time. She only had a second or two to plant it before you confronted her."

"She done screwed up my engine too many times already. I worried for my girl every time I couldn't be here to defend her. That insult-slinging 骚屄sāobī, that 妓女 在 地獄 jìnǚ zài dìyù…"

"Kaylee, I'm right shocked. You don't never call people suchlike names, not even when they deserve it."

"Well, she deserved it, Cap'n, believe you me." Kaylee was uncompromising.

"Kaylee, I ain't never seen you like this." Mal wondered how Kaylee, his sweet sunshine 妹妹 mèimei, had suddenly grown this spine of cold steel. It was an aspect of Kaylee he had not seen before, and he wasn't entirely sure it was a welcome development. What had Saffron done to her? He himself wouldn't never dare step between Kaylee and an engine she loved, but he sensed that this was more than just Kaylee defending her ship. "What did that evil snake do to you?"

"Don't really want to talk about it, Cap'n," Kaylee answered.

Mal sighed to himself. Kaylee wouldn't get over it, whatever it was, until she talked it out of her system. He hated to see her suffering and closing herself off with her hurt, unwilling to accept comfort. She was acting…well, like _he_ acted. And it weren't a real good way to get better of your hurts; he knew that from personal experience. "Well, how's about we talk about something else, then?" he said, attempting to honor her request. He gave her a kind smile. "Why don't you tell me 'bout that pretty ring you got on your finger?" Kaylee still hadn't said anything to the others about her and Simon.

To his surprise, Kaylee burst into tears. "Said I don't—want—to—talk about it!" she gasped between sobs.

"妹妹 Mèimei, now there, 妹妹 mèimei!" He gathered Kaylee in for a hug, and held her, rocking, soothing, patting her back. After a bit, when her sobs had subsided some, he ventured, "I apologize, sweetheart. I didn't realize I was touchin' on a sore subject. Thought to be talkin' on something cheersome."

"Oh, 哥哥 gēgē!" Kaylee began, but got caught up in tears again and buried her face on his shoulder. Mal could only hold her comfortingly and pat her back gently, as he wondered miserably what could have gone wrong between her and Simon. Mal figured that Simon had proposed, and that Kaylee had accepted. She was wearing the ring, after all. Why was it a subject of misery, instead of joy? Had Simon done it all wrong? Had he made her feel bad, even as he asked her to be his wife? Mal began to get angry. If Simon had done wrong by Kaylee, Mal was gonna… "He hurt you, 妹妹 mèimei?" he asked, in a still, quiet voice.

Kaylee stiffened, sensing the danger in Mal's quiet tones. "No," she said, pulling back and looking at his face. "No, nothin' like that. Don't go gettin' no ideas, 哥哥 gēgē."

"He asked you ta marry him?" Mal asked, and Kaylee nodded, silently, her expression unreadable. "Well, what 'm I s'posed ta think, 妹妹 mèimei, when a man asks you ta marry him, and what I see is all the sunshine gone outta your smile, and the brightest person on my ship walkin' 'round under a dark cloud? It ain't right."

"It's not Simon, 哥哥 gēgē. It's…her."

"Saffron."

"Yeah." He waited, and Kaylee finally continued. "She didn't come in here just to muck up the engine. She mucked me around, too."

Mal exhaled. "Surely you know better than to believe a thing she says, Kaylee. It ain't no fault of yours if she made ya feel bad. That evil woman mucked me around as well. Made me look like a fool, made me look like everything I'm not, and done it in front of Inara, too. She specializes in makin' people feel bad, ya know. It was part of her whole strategy here. Make all of us so upset with ourselves and each other, throw us off the scent, so we wouldn't see what _else_ she was doin', the serious muckin' up of the ship—all what she done to it that we ain't even discovered yet."

"Some of what she said, 哥哥 gēgē—" Kaylee hesitated, "some of it's…true."

"That woman don't say nothin' that ain't aiming to mislead, manipulate or hurt folk," Mal countered. "What'd she say to you?"

"She said…she…" Kaylee risked a fearful glance at Mal. It pained him, to see his 妹妹 mèimei looking at him like that. "She _knew."_

"Knew what?"

Kaylee couldn't answer, just looked like to burst into tears.

"What?" he asked. "What's wrong, Kaylee?"

"She _knew_ I'm pregnant," Kaylee whispered quickly, and cringed as if she expected him to explode.

It hurt Mal, to see Kaylee look so fearful—and fearful of _him_. Was he really such a 屁眼儿pìyǎnr? He'd accepted Zoe's pregnancy without undue fussing, hadn't he? Did Kaylee expect him to rant and storm and throw her off the boat? Way she was lookin' at him, she did. Of course, he already knew about Kaylee's pregnancy—Simon had said as much, weeks ago, when he told him the men's contraceptives were no good. He didn't imagine Simon kept secrets from Kaylee, so she had to know that he knew, too. True, she hadn't told him directly before this, and he hadn't mentioned the subject to her, but—why the fear? Must be she was afraid he'd throw them out on their ear, first opportunity.

哎呀 Āiyā, he was a 屁眼儿pìyǎnr, no doubt about it. He regretted all the times he'd groused and griped about shipboard relationships, how he'd put up obstacles every time Zoe and Wash had come close to deciding to have children, how he'd repeated over and over again that shipboard relationships complicated things—made it look like he was opposed to family and children and all. He was an idiot. Wash had once told him that his problem was that he projected his own intimacy issues onto everyone else. 天啊 Tiān ā, it was true. Because all that time he'd been working against the things that, deep down inside, he cherished most.

_Time to be a __男儿__nán'ér__ Reynolds,_ he told himself sternly, not a _屁眼儿__pìyǎnr__._

"So what's wrong with that?" he answered, looking Kaylee in the eye. "Prospect of a baby comin' is a cause for joy, not nothin' else."

"Don't it…complicate things?" Kaylee asked, uncertainly.

"Well, sure, I reckon it does," Mal answered. "But life's always complicated, ain't it? Rather have it complicated by a baby than…well, there's lots of less pleasant ways for things to get complicated, ain't there?"

"So you ain't…mad?"

"Mad? No, Kaylee, I ain't mad. Any baby of yours is bound to be the sunniest child in the 'Verse."

Kaylee smiled at him. Then a shadow crossed her face.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

闭嘴 Bìzuǐ [Shut up]

妹妹 mèimei [little sister]

哥哥 gēgē [older brother]

屁眼儿pìyǎnr [jerk, asshole]

哎呀 Āiyā [Damn]

天啊 Tiān ā [God]

男儿 nán'ér [real man]

* * *

_A/N: Okay, kind of an abrupt ending here. However, this was too long to post in one chapter and this seemed like the only place to break the scene. More of Kaylee and Mal's talk coming right up in the next chapter. Your thoughts on Malware, Saffron, Kaylee's baby, or anything else related to this story, most welcome._


	4. Chapter 4

Ends with a Horse, Part 2b

_More heart to heart over Serenity's beating heart_

* * *

"What? What's wrong, Kaylee? Did she try to hurt your baby?" Mal asked, suddenly much more tense inside.

"No…no, it's what she said. About Simon." Kaylee was lookin' even more like she was about to burst into tears—and then she did. Mal hugged her and patted her back lightly, feeling completely out of his depth. Dealing with hormonally-charged pregnant womenfolk was not his forte. At last her tears subsided enough for her to tell him, "I'm worried he's only marryin' me 'cause of the baby comin'."

"The stuck up 不解风情 bùjiěfēngqíng 混蛋 húndàn!" Mal exclaimed angrily. _What kind of man would ask a woman to marry him without tellin' her he loved her? _"He say that, Kaylee?"

"No, no," Kaylee insisted. "哥哥 Gēgē, it's not…Simon asked me—it was beautiful, how he done it. And I said yes, and we were all…No, it's what _she_ said, the next day."

"Saffron?"

Kaylee nodded. "Simon's very smart." Mal cringed inwardly. Last thing he wanted to hear was Kaylee gushing about Simon. But it turned out what Kaylee was saying was much more difficult for him to stomach than mushy praises of her fiancé. "High class and proper, too. He hadn't left the Core, he coulda married anybody he wanted. Beautiful, rich, educated woman with connections, help him rise in his profession, take his place in high society and all—not some hick from a prairie planet can't talk sophisticated nor eat with the right fork at a dinner party, what his parents wouldn't approve of—"

"Kaylee," Mal interrupted, "I will _not_ hear you talk on yourself this way." His own opinion was that if Simon's parents ever met Kaylee, and _didn't _approve, they'd be gorram idiots. "_If _he hadn't left the Core, yeah, maybe he'd a' gone and married one of them Core girls you're talkin' of. But he _did_ leave the Core. He saved River. He come out here. And he met you." _If_ _there hadn't been no war, most like I'd be a rancher on Shadow, married to Mindy, with a passel of young 'uns by now. Everything would be different_. "Life's too short for ifs and maybes. It don't bear thinkin' on."

"He only chose me 'cause he ain't got no choice," Kaylee whispered. "Just me here at the bottom of the barrel."

"Bottom of the barrel!" Mal was unable to repress his indignation. Saffron had got to Kaylee, and bad. "That ain't so," he countered. "These ain't your thoughts, Kaylee. This is Saffron planting poison in your mind, tryin' to wreck the goodness that you have."

"She said—she said—she—" Kaylee hiccoughed.

"Shh, shh," Mal soothed, hugging Kaylee again. "Don't matter what she said, you know in your heart it ain't true."

"But it _is_," Kaylee protested. "Since Simon asked me, we've had great sex—"

_I do _not_ need to hear this,_ thought Mal, his hand suspended in mid-air in the middle of patting her back, but he was wise enough not to speak.

"—but he ain't hardly _talked_ to me." Kaylee sniffed again, and Mal sensed another big cry coming on. "He ain't hardly spoken, and all what he does say comes out all cold and sarcastic-like. It's true what she said: he just wants my body. He don't really love me for _me_. How could he? I'm just a stupid hick covered with engine grease what's got the right body parts."

Mal never thought he'd see the day when he would take Simon's part and tell Kaylee she was wrong, but this was it. He leaned against the edge of the workbench, and pulled Kaylee alongside. Turning toward her, he held her eyes and asked her seriously, "妹妹 Mèimei, Simon ever treat you with anything less than respect?"

She didn't speak, but she shook her head slightly.

"If he was just lustin' after your body, he coulda had you any time in the last year and a half—ain't that so?" Mal was walking a fine line—the truth was sometimes harsh, and the last thing he wanted was for Kaylee to feel bad about herself. "You been makin' moonpie-eyes at him since he first come aboard, li'l Kaylee. If your body was all he wanted, he coulda had it, and you'da given it to him, wouldn't ya?" Mal was careful to speak gently. "But he didn't take it. He didn't want it that way. He wanted more than just…that." Mal looked at Kaylee. "He waited until he knew that you wanted more than just that, too." Standing again, he put his hands on Kaylee's shoulders, and looked down at her. "He's an honorable man, and he loves you."

Kaylee looked at him. Her eyes glistening with tears that she blinked back.

"He's just bein' cold and sarcastic-like 'cause that's what he done to defend himself against Saffron," Mal told her. "It's his armor. Worked pretty good, if you ask me. Simon and River, they held up pretty well against Saffron. But we all been spun about. Take us a while to recover from what that evil snake done to us. Take more than a few chicken jokes to get our sense of humor back again."

Kaylee cracked a tiny smile at that. "Chicken jokes help," she said quietly. "谢谢 Xièxie, 哥哥 gēgē."

"When you have someone you love, who loves you too, and you got somethin' special between you, you shouldn't let no poisonous thoughts from the likes of Saffron come between you."

"You're right, Cap'n," Kaylee said. "You shouldn't let poisonous thoughts what come from the likes of that evil, treacherous snake stand between you and your love, should ya, Cap'n?"

Mal looked at her. She wasn't talkin' about her and Simon anymore.

"You should see that what you got between you is a pure goodness, that it's good for both of you. And find your strength in it." She looked him directly in the eye. "You and Inara made up yet?"

"Well, Kaylee, that's different, me and Inara, we—"

"And what's so different about it? Saffron done tried to poison the two of you against each other as well. I seen it."

"Weren't Saffron caused our differences. We already weren't speakin' to one another, before Saffron even came on this boat. That's not what we—" He sighed and sat down, folding himself onto the low ledge at the side of the engine room, next to the workbench. Kaylee looked down at him. She'd never seen her Captain, the man she looked up to like an older brother, look quite so 苦悶 kǔmèn and vulnerable. The defensiveness she'd seen before; the depression, too. He was a man who kept his personal life personal, who guarded his feelings carefully and rarely spoke about them, though it was clear enough to Kaylee that he had a kind and loving heart. He tried to hide it behind a tough-guy exterior and a flippant sense of humor, but Kaylee had enough experience with her brothers, boys, and men to see past the façade. She had known from the minute she met the Cap'n that he was a good man. He rested his elbows on his knees and worried at his hair, as he continued very quietly. "'Sides, Inara don't really love me anyways. She's a Companion, and it wasn't…" So absorbed was he in his painful confession that he completely missed Kaylee's horrified reaction. "…It was just her using her techniques to make me feel good, just plain old-fashioned Companion wiles—comforting and all that—and I fell for it. Don't matter that it was never real. Don't mean a thing."

"You don't mean that! Of course it was real!"

"Was it?" He spoke desolately, almost to himself.

"'Course it's real! Cap'n, she loves you. You know it. I know you two been fightin', but that's just…of course she loves you."

Mal just sat there, staring bleakly at the spinning engine, and shook his head slightly, while Kaylee gaped at him, a horrified expression on her face. She knew the Captain and Inara had been having some serious difficulties, but maybe she hadn't appreciated how very bad things had gotten. She didn't understand how things could _still_ be so bad. Hadn't the two of them just…? "But you talked to her, last night. You worked things out, didn't you? Made things better, right?" Kaylee's native optimism had begun to kick in, but Mal continued to peer hopelessly at the slowly turning rotor. "But you just spent the night in Inara's shuttle!" she blurted.

Mal turned to her open-mouthed. "I—what—not like—didn't—how do you—?" he sputtered.

"I—sorry, Cap'n. I just assumed you two were makin' up, seein' as you—." She stopped abruptly, as it suddenly occurred to her that maybe she shouldn't mention the obvious love-bites on his neck. Inara had appeared at breakfast similarly marked. With any other couple, that would point to some serious making-up goin' on. Naturally she had assumed…

"I…honestly, Kaylee, I don't know if we were makin' up so much as just fightin' in bed instead of fightin' standing up," Mal said with a sigh, running his hands through his hair again. His attempt to talk things out with Inara had led to the two of them "resolving" their differences by means of some of the most possessive and furious coupling he had yet experienced. The resolution of their tension had marked him—literally, as he'd noticed the next morning while shaving. Not just the obvious ones Kaylee was so clearly refraining from remarking on, but others hidden by his clothing.

"Possession" was a euphemism for sex. Mal had never much cared for the term, as it implied that a body could own another person—and that was a notion he did not hold with. Not nobody owned nobody else. He preferred other terms, like love-making. But last night—well, couldn't call it making _love_ if the love was all one-sided, 不是嗎 bùshìma? He still loved Inara, couldn't help but love her, but on her side—well, it was comfort, he supposed. Kindness. He reckoned she was fond of him, in an irritated sort of way. And in a possessive kind of way, too—since she seemed so jealous of his affections. It didn't make no sense.

Kaylee looked at him, astonished. He _never_ talked about sex; even hinting at it made him all embarrassed and tongue-tied. It was hard not to laugh—him with his hair stickin' up all over the place and Inara's love-marks all over him, denying that Inara loved him—but it would hurt him more if she did. So she just nodded.

"She thought I was cheatin' on her. That's why we quarreled. She don't trust me," he said, looking up at her. To her immense surprise, Kaylee saw that her Captain—her rock and pillar of strength, the toughest person she knew (well, besides Zoe, of course)—had tears in his eyes. "I love that woman, 妹妹 mèimei. I wanna marry her, live with her…" His voice was choked, just barely above a harsh whisper, and Kaylee had to strain to hear his words above the beating heart of the engine. She wasn't sure he even meant for her to hear them. "…raise a family with her, grow old with her—"

"You told her any of these things, 哥哥 gēge?" she asked softly.

He just stared at the slow rotation of Serenity's beating heart, moving his head slowly from side to side. Just when Kaylee thought that was all the answer he'd make, he whispered, "She damn near broke my heart. It's hard."

"She loves you, Cap'n. You know that."

"Do I?"

"'Course she does," Kaylee told him. "How can you doubt it?"

The look he gave her was so bleak and hopeless it tore at Kaylee's heart.

Kaylee wished Shepherd Book were here. Shepherd knew what to say, time like this. "Shepherd Book always said, forgiveness—" Kaylee began.

"Can't. Can't just forgive and forget. My heart's still bruised."

"Love don't keep no record of wrongs. It don't stay angry, it trusts an' hopes—"

"You quotin' the bible at me?" he asked sharply.

She didn't back down. Bible or no, didn't make no matter. It was still true, and he needed to hear it. "They say forgiveness heals the heart."

"Well, I think _'they'_ are wrong!" he retorted vehemently. He took a breath. "Sorry, Kaylee. Shouldn't oughtta be shoutin' at ya.

"You could apologize to her for—"

"_No,"_ he cut her off. "I'm done with that. I already apologized 'til I was blue in the face, and she wouldn't have none of it. I apologized even though I ain't done nothin' to hurt her this time. I apologized, I trusted her…" _when she tells me she ain't seein' clients, that her appointments on Beaumonde didn't have nothin' to do with…._ He kept those thoughts to himself. Fidelity was a painful subject. "It's her turn," he finished, and Kaylee could tell by the stubborn set of his jaw that he meant it.

"Look," he said, rising, "I shouldn't oughtta been troubling you with my personal 废物 fèiwù. Forget I mentioned it." He left the engine room, and Kaylee could tell by the set of his shoulders that he carried his stubbornness with him.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

不解风情 bùjiěfēngqíng [unromantic, insensitive]

混蛋 húndàn [bastard]

哥哥 Gēgē [Older brother]

妹妹 Mèimei [Little sister]

谢谢 Xièxie [Thanks]

苦悶 kǔmèn [low; depressed; dejected]

不是嗎 bùshìma [weren't that so]

废物 fèiwù [rubbish]

* * *

_I welcome your comments and reviews._


	5. Chapter 5

Ends with a Horse, Part 3a

_Saffron makes a few calls._

* * *

Saffron _hated_ it when clients made a fuss about paying for her work. She got it done. They paid for it. That was how the universe was supposed to work. And yet this impossible, 顽固 wángù woman was making a fuss.

"The device was installed," she insisted snippily. "I placed it exactly as you specified."

"And yet it failed to disable the ship."

"It was discovered," Saffron reported. "That's hardly my fault."

"Perhaps it was improperly deployed," the woman countered, "or you were incautious. You made it obvious, and they discovered it prematurely, before it could be activated. In which case I don't think full payment is warranted."

"It was properly deployed. I must insist upon full payment for services rendered."

"Why didn't it explode?"

Saffron nearly rolled her eyes. "I already told you, 老板娘 lǎobǎnniáng." She put just enough snark in her tone of voice to make it ambiguous as to whether the title were honorific or derogatory. "The device was discovered _before_ it exploded."

"You have positive information?"

"Of course." This time she did roll her eyes. What kind of amateur did the woman think she'd hired? "I observed the ship in Pedro Dockyards. The ship's mechanic was intending to perform repairs to the navsat, and discovered the device."

"So it exploded on the ground? In the dockyard? Why didn't I hear casualty reports on the local news channels?"

"The girl was cautious and didn't come close enough to trigger it. Instead she reported it to the captain, and he disarmed the device."

"_Disarmed?_ How many people actually know how to disarm a Qianxia proximity detonator?"

_At least one, _apparently_, __老板娘__lǎobǎnniáng__. _Saffron shrugged. That was not her problem.

"Agent Luz, you were entrusted with a special set of tools and devices. If you are unable to deploy them properly, they will not be made available in the future."

Saffron was pissed. The only reason she'd agreed to work with this particular employer was on account of the opportunity to play with the special toys. The woman had no call to act all high-handed with _her. _But she hid her reaction. What she said was, "I'm only reporting what I observed. After the mechanic discovered the devices, the captain returned to the ship." Carrying his obviously injured first officer over his shoulder, she might have added, but that was none of the 老板娘 lǎobǎnniáng's business. Saffron was a master of omitting unnecessary details. "Shortly after that, I observed him climbing topside, with the little mechanic spotting from the ground. He spent considerable time up there, with no explosion or incident. He later climbed down with the disassembled parts in his hands. Then I observed the mechanic climb up and make the repairs."

"Why didn't you report this sooner, Agent Luz?" The 老板娘 lǎobǎnniáng was seriously displeased.

"I had to catch a flight," Saffron answered, nonchalantly. It was not 老板娘 lǎobǎnniáng's business to know that the flight she caught was aboard that self-same ship. That, having observed the dismantling of the explosive devices and the Qianxia detonator, she had then proceded with her _other_ mission. She had walked right over from her observation post, climbed into one of the gorram chicken crates, and signaled the delivery service she had on standby. A short time later, the crates (and Saffron) had been deposited at the foot of Serenity's ramp and loaded aboard.

"You had to _catch a flight?_ And you couldn't be bothered to wave us en route?"

"I didn't have access to a secure channel," Saffron countered. "I don't suppose you'd want your role in this revealed to all and sundry in a casual unencrypted wave." She shrugged. Not her problem if the woman hadn't made allowances for the astuteness of her targets. But not everyone was gifted with superior research skills, like she was. People didn't do the prep work, so they failed. Or got caught. "Listen, I got the job done, as promised, and in good time."

"The mission was unsuccessful."

"It's for you to decide if _you_ succeeded in meeting your goals. From _my_ perspective, the mission was a complete success. The devices were installed as specified, in a timely manner. You owe me the full amount of the promised remuneration. And if you do not pay _me_ in a timely manner, I'll—"

"You'll _what?_" the woman scoffed. "File a complaint? Dun me? Report me to the Better Business Bureau? Sue for compensation in a court of law?"

"Why, no," Saffron told her. "I'll simply refer the matter to my _collection agency._" She smiled, full of menace, and the woman, despite her hard-as-nails exterior, blanched, as she realized what Saffron had just threatened her with. "I do the job," Saffron said sweetly, the look in her eyes belying her sugary tone, "and then I get paid."

. . .

该死 Gāisǐ, what was wrong with him? he thought, as he stumped off to the bridge. _Shouldn't ought to be burdening li'l Kaylee with all my personal __废物__fèiwù like that. _He aimed to comfort her, and instead he dumped all his baggage at her feet like a gorram idiot. Dumped it on Kaylee, just like he'd dumped it on Zoe, right before the ambush. Hell, he'd even dumped his 废物 fèiwù on River, and 我的天啊 wǒ de tiān ā if she didn't already have burdens enough of her own. What kind of a 屁眼儿 pìyǎnr was he, dumpin' his 垃圾 lājī on every friend he had? This was exactly why he was against shipboard relationships. They complicated things. He felt like a gorram idiot. Instead of being wise and strong and all that, there he was, letting his heart-wounds bleed out onto his twenty-three-year old 小妹妹 xǐao mèimei like it was up to her to salve his wounds.

Did Inara love him? Damned if he knew. He'd thought so…he thought he'd seen the real woman behind the Companion mask—when he told her he loved her, and she smiled on him; when he asked her to marry him, and she didn't say no. Maybe even those 疯了 fēngle accusations she'd made—sleepin' with Zoe, a girl in every port _(really!)_—were a sign of love. If she didn't care, would she bother being jealous?

But on the other side of the balance were the doubts. Inara had never actually _told_ him that she loved him. And there was everything she'd said to Saffron about being able to stimulate a response in the typical male—like he was some kind of lab rat, not a man, a human being with feelings. Gorrammit! He took a deep breath or three, waiting until the heart-pain eased. He'd turn into a blithering idiot, he didn't watch out. There was a part of his mind that warned him not to give weight to anything that Inara had said to him in Saffron's presence. That evil snake had played him like he was a hand of Tall Card, and she held all the plums. Played him, played Inara too, and played the both of them off each other. He shouldn't pay any heed. But it was enough to plant seeds of doubt, and since he'd always had more than a healthy helping of self-doubt anyway, the seeds fell in fertile ground and grew rampant like weeds. He couldn't begin to imagine what Inara saw in him, even if she _did_ love him. Even on a good day he had difficulty believing in the fairy tale, and on a bad day—of which there'd been more than a few lately—he wondered if it had ever been real.

His thoughts ran gloomier. What woman in her right mind would want him, anyhow? Damaged goods, is what he was. Hollowed out shell of a man. Hadn't been whole since before Serenity Valley, and it weren't no wonder Inara didn't like what she saw inside him. Dark places—_open up, see what's inside—darkness you can't even imagine—_a broken-down excuse for a human being.

. . .

The message was succinct and to the point. _"Success. I got it done."_

"I get it done" had been her watchword. The man known as 代號 Dài Hào nodded to himself, as he sat alone in his port inspector's office. Good. Very good. Ilona was as slippery an agent as they came, but his instincts told him she would get it done.

He had at first been reluctant to hire her. Her previous acquaintance with the target could easily have been a liability. But when she outlined her plan, he read between the lines. The woman had clearly done her research, and knew the target's vulnerabilities. She was willing to put herself on the line to exploit those weak spots. They wouldn't suspect it, she assured him, and even when they did, they wouldn't be able to sort out the red herrings from the true scent, and they wouldn't track it down until it was much too late.

Still, 代號 Dài Hào waited until he had independent confirmation before he wired payment into Ilona's account.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

顽固 wángù [stubborn]

老板娘 lǎobǎnniáng [boss lady]

该死 Gāisǐ [Dammit]

废物 fèiwù [crap, rubbish]

我的天啊 wǒ de tiān ā [my god]

屁眼儿 pìyǎnr [asshole, bastard]

垃圾 lājī [garbage]

小妹妹 xǐao mèimei [baby sister]

疯了 fēngle [crazy]

代號 Dài Hào [Code name]

* * *

_Very busy with work this weekend, but managed to get this chapter posted anyway. Hope you enjoy. Please review._


	6. Chapter 6

Ends with a Horse, Part 3b

_Mal begins to see a ray of light._

* * *

The Captain arrived on the bridge in a cloud of turmoil so thick he didn't even register her presence. He sat down and, out of habit, flicked the three check switches, but he didn't even look at the ship's response. He came to the bridge to sulk (although he would have called it _brooding_—a much more manly term). And to hide. From all of his crew. From Inara especially. He stared out at the Black, lost in his gloomy cloud of thoughts.

"She knows you're here, but she won't come looking. Doesn't want to intrude," River said, testing the waters.

No response. He didn't even hear her. River settled back in her seat quietly. _Invisible_.

. . .

Anger, fury, and jealousy. That's what his relationship with Inara had come to. He'd taken a chance, acted on hope, and this was where it led—to anger, fury, and jealousy.

Now, Inara angry was no problem. In fact, in the early days he generally aimed to provoke her and annoy her—because when she reacted angrily, he knew it was real—the _real_ Inara and not the smooth, unruffled Companion mask he'd learned to distrust so much.

Inara furious he hadn't experienced until recently—and he had to admit, it was a bit overwhelming. Crockery-hurling-shouting-can't-get-a-word-in-edgewise overwhelming, like a volcano blowing up and covering everything with hot lava. Or there was also the other kind, the cold fury, the silent-treatment-walled-off-won't-talk-keep-you-guessing-in-the-dark kind of fury, and that was just as overwhelming, like the cold water inundation of a tsunami, and maybe even more destructive.

Inara jealous—he just didn't know what to make of that. Sure, _he_ was jealous. But that was simply because he was neurotic and insecure. Inara was always so confident. Jealousy in her seemed unnatural. It felt like a disease. In him, it was…okay, it was still a disease, but confidence was another one of those intangibles he'd lost at Serenity Valley, and jealousy seemed to follow close on the heels of that. Just another one of those chronic conditions he had to learn to live with.

Every time Inara talked about making _appointments_, he was hit by a wave of jealousy, no matter that he told himself that supposedly these appointments didn't have nothing to do with clients. Just the not knowing—did she love him or not? Did she have it better with all those other men she'd took to bed with? 哦天啊 Ò tiān ā, he needed to cut off that line of thought right now—he couldn't stand it. Who can stand before jealousy?

"Anger is cruel and fury overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy?"

"You quotin' the bible at me, Shepherd?" _Gorrammit, there seemed to be a rash of bible-quotin' breaking out on his boat. First Kaylee, now Book…_

"She's jealous of what you have with Zoe," Book observed in his measured voice.

"Can't change that," Mal shrugged.

"Can't you?"

"What Zoe and I have, it's part of history. We been through so much together. Ain't nobody can change that."

"It makes Inara jealous."

"She'll have to deal with it." Mal turned back to the instrument panel, a clear signal to the preacher that his interference was unwelcome.

"Must you flaunt it in her face?"

"_What?"_ Mal sputtered indignantly.

"The way you look at Zoe," Book continued, "and communicate a thousand things without saying, conveyed in no more than a glance—"

Mal was defensive. "Took years for me and Zoe to develop our understanding."

"Inara wants that."

Mal was silent.

"It's very intimate," Book opined.

"What's very intimate?"

"The way you and Zoe communicate."

"We just think along the same track. It's easy to understand someone when you're thinkin' along the same lines."

"Inara wants that. Wants to understand. Wants to communicate. Wants that level of intimacy." Book fixed Mal with a penetrating stare.

"Listen, Shepherd," Mal replied, determined to make this perfectly clear, "Inara and I been intimate in ways that me and Zoe never—"

"But not in _that_ way."

Mal had no reply. It was true.

"You and Zoe are intimate in a way that you've not yet achieved with Inara. Is it really any surprise that Inara is jealous of the easy communication you share with Zoe? That freedom to speak or stay silent, confident that you'll be understood. Knowing the meaning behind her words, and interpreting the meaning of her silences just as easily. Of course she longs for that kind of intimacy.

"There are things you don't talk about at all with Inara," Book continued, divining the direction of Mal's train of thought.

"True," Mal admitted. "But I don't want to." He tried to define his reasons, his hands flapping uncertainly. There were horrors in his past, acts of violence and bloodshed, desperation and abuse, things so bad he tried to hide them from _himself_. Bad enough that _he_ was tainted. Didn't want to damage no one else with that 毒害 dúhài. He didn't want to talk about it with _anyone_. "She'd…explode or somethin' if I told her—"

"—things that Zoe already knows about you," Book finished.

"Don't have to talk about them things with Zoe." That was it. That was why. Zoe was _safe._ Already inoculated, and immune from the taint. Inara might _explode._ Swell and die from the 毒气 dúqì of it. Some things were better off not knowing about, and he didn't want Inara to have his 废物 fèiwù stuck in _her_ head, too.

"Exactly," Book agreed.

"We done _lived _it. No need to talk about it."

"With Zoe," the Shepherd appended.

"Right," Mal nodded. "She understands without sayin'."

Book gave it a beat of silence. "But…" He allowed the qualifier to hang in the air.

"But _what_, Shepherd?"

Book's continued silence compelled Mal to provide his own answer.

"You're sayin I need to talk about it…with Inara."

"Inara doesn't know," the Shepherd said softly.

"I don't want her to know!" Mal exclaimed. "Shepherd…she's my refuge from the dark…she's my 射线光 shèxiàn guāng, my ray of light in the darkness. I don't want to smother that light with all the dark places in my soul."

Book contemplated this admission for a moment, then gave Mal a half-smile. "What if it works the other way?"

"Other way what?"

"What if—"

"—she brings light to the dark places?" Mal's face lit briefly with hope, but his expression quickly hardened. "That's all very poetical, Shepherd. But that ain't gonna happen."

Book folded his arms. "Because you won't let it."

Mal crossed his own arms in stubborn resistance.

Book said nothing, but it didn't take a genius to read his facial expression. _See? That's exactly what I was saying. _As was his custom, he waited out Mal's obstinacy.

As usual whenever he and the Shepherd reached one of these silent impasses, Mal broke first. "I ain't gonna…I don't want to….Look, Shepherd, I _need_ her brightness. Don't want to dim that spark with my…baggage. Like I got a black hole in my soul, sucks the joy right outta everything I touch."

Book chuckled, and actually rolled his eyes at Mal's melodramatic statement. "That's an exaggeration, Captain."

_Hell, preacher had called him on his dramatics_. "Okay," Mal conceded. "Alright. I've felt that way sometimes, but I know it ain't really true. So not a black hole. But a hole, nonetheless, and it's a pretty damn dark hole. I should know. I spend a lot of time there."

Book merely looked at him. Mal must be getting good at Book's silent game, because he read the Shepherd's expression easily. _You spend a lot of time there willingly._

_Won't break first, won't break, won't…_ Mal fixed him with as belligerent a look as he could manage, but it was no good. _Should oughtta know better by now, Reynolds: can't outlast the Shepherd in a silent contest. _"Yeah," he breathed in acknowledgment. "I spend a lot of time there…willingly. I kinda…enjoy the misery. Or I'm used to it, anyways. It's all I got left."

"No, it's not," Book instantly contradicted him.

Mal stared in grim defiance.

"You hang onto that misery because it comforts you."

"_Comforts_ me?! Shepherd, that's the craziest notion I ever heard. How can a man find comfort in misery?"

_You tell me. _The Shepherd focused his gaze steadily on Mal, and saw right through him. Mal quailed, and broke.

"Because he finds it steadier than confronting the unknown." The words were dragged out of him, unwillingly. Truth was a bitter substance to swallow and digest. "I cling to misery…because I'm afraid," he breathed, "afraid I'm—Shepherd, happiness ain't for the likes of me."

Mal gazed out the window at darkness without end. At last he turned to face the Shepherd's scorn, and to his surprise found Book regarding him in a kindly manner. "Why do you cling to that notion, Captain?"

The kindness roused his ornery streak. Denial always made a good shield. "I'm not—" he protested. _I'm not the kind of man that good things happen to_, his mind supplied.

"You gather the gloom around your soul like a comforting cloak. You'd rather stay wrapped up in your sufferings than take a chance at letting in the warmth and light of the sun. The light that might bleach out the misery that grows like mildew in the dark corners of your mind. The light that might warm your heart." Book's look bore directly into Mal's soul—or would've, if he still had one worthy of the name—and demanded his attention. "You don't want that?"

"False hopes…make a man weak…" Mal countered miserably. "Weak…vulnerable…"

"Real hope makes a man strong," Book proclaimed in his deep voice. "Mighty. Able to overcome, and do the impossible."

Mal remained silent, sitting desolately in his chair, staring out at the Black, unable to see the points of light in the darkness.

"You've got far more left than misery. You've got a ship. A good crew that's a family to you. You've got the love of a remarkable woman, love that you share. Love that keeps you flying, and gives you hope for the future."

Book's voice held a warmth, and as he gazed bleakly out at the blackness of space, Mal began to see the stars and planets, the constellation 凤凰座 Fènghuángzuò and the fuzzy brightness of the open cluster 麒麟 Qílín, bringer of 瑞 ruì. His face began to reflect a little bit of light.

"The Special Hell is of your own creation. You needn't spend another moment there. _You _have the power to climb out of that hole. Let in the light."

Mal turned to face Book, but the Shepherd no longer stood by him. Instead he looked across the gap to find River opposite him in the co-pilot's chair, her feet drawn up on the seat. She reached over the control panel and lightly tapped a button, and gazed silently out at the Black, as soundless as space itself.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

哦天啊 Ò tiān ā [Oh god]

毒害 dúhài [poison]

毒气 dúqì [poisonous or toxic manifestation of spirit (Buddhism)]

废物 fèiwù [crap, rubbish]

射线光 shèxiàn guāng [ray of light]

凤凰座 Fènghuángzuò [Phoenix]

麒麟 Qílín [Chinese unicorn]

瑞 ruì [serenity]

* * *

_For those of you who thought Mal was really down in the dumps in the last chapter...he's on his way up now. I'd love to read your comments and reviews._


	7. Chapter 7

_Ends with a Horse, Part 3c_

_In which we make the acquaintance of a pair of young men in dark suits._

* * *

The room they worked in was painted dull grey. It was no different from any of a dozen rooms in the facility, except it was more comfortably furnished than the interrogation rooms and holding cells, and the walls were lined with high-tech communications equipment. The door also opened from the inside, and the Ident Cards they wore displayed on lanyards around their necks—when coupled with their retinal scans, which were registered in the system, and the passwords they had memorized—granted them full run of all but the most exclusive parts of the building.

Both of them aspired to greater things. Each of them had applied to the elite program, only to have their applications returned with an unsigned note indicating that a renewed application at a later date might be acceptable. Rejection stung, but they were both still young and full of themselves, and both were confident that someday, they'd enter the elite ranks of the operative agents, shed their born identities, and don the blue gloves. In the meantime, they wore the suits. Those, afterall, could be purchased in any men's wear store at the shopping triplex, and they wanted to show that they could look the part.

Meanwhile, Anatoly Tse and Boromiro Janiewicz worked the lower rank jobs that supported the operation. Most of their time was spent in the grey room, monitoring the listening and tracking devices. Occasionally, they were called upon to serve coffee or run errands for the agents with the more glamorous jobs. Once in a while, they set up for the confidential meetings of the higher elites who directed the field operatives, and occasionally, they were present when a field operative made his report. Sometimes, they were called upon to use their technical skills, when a ship needed to be remote-flown, or a wave needed to be sent from a disguised or spoofed source.

Mostly, though, they sat and waited, and monitored. "Monitoring" was an elegant way of saying that there was a lot of downtime in their jobs. When an operation requiring their technical skills was underway, they were indeed busy, but in between operations, they waited. And they talked. They made light of not being among the elite, and told each other that it was "just a matter of time, before they accept my application." Such was the life of the Blue Hand wannabes.

The truth was, they knew _a lot_. They were spook wannabes, and they paid attention to _everything_. They knew a lot more than either of them let on. And yet they were human, and young men, and they wanted to be able to boast about how "in-the-know" they were to _someone_. Since they both had the same level security clearances and highly overlapping assignments, they talked to each other, in a perpetual game of one-upmanship.

Their approach to the game was different. Anatoly was the ambitious one, self-important. He liked to make out that he was more in-the-know than he really was—always leaving Boromiro with the suggestion that maybe he really _was_ in-the-know. He liked to make Boromiro think that he knew more than Boromiro knew. Anatoly attended the in-house seminars, and jumped at the chance to serve coffee at the top meetings. He listened. And was thereby privy to all kinds of top secret info. Or at least, so he always let on to Boromiro. And whenever Boromiro asked, "Really, Anatoly, is that the truth, or are you just making this stuff up?" Anatoly would reply, "If I answered that question, Boromiro, I'd have to shoot you." To which, Boromiro would roll his eyes. Nonetheless, Boromiro was unsure if Anatoly was just playing James Bond or if Anatoly was really in the know.

Boromiro was also ambitious, but he hid it. He played the role of the stupid one. He was much smarter than he appeared. He found that if you played the imbecile, the clueless one, people let down their guard, began to be incautious, and said things around you that you shouldn't be privy to. He collected a lot of scuttlebutt this way. Much of it was useless gossip, but he knew he'd been let in on a number of top-secret things in this manner as well, by people who were rendered incautious by his disarming, clueless, harmless appearance. He guarded the secrets he had gathered closely. But you couldn't be overly cautious, either, because then people would suspect that you were hiding something. So from time to time he carefully let slip bits of casual information without fanfare, as if accidentally. This bolstered his clueless image.

One of the pieces of scuttlebutt Boromiro had gathered was that the mercenary agent who'd been hired to set up the operation had found _another_ Blue Sun agent already in place on the ship they were tracking.

This was news to Anatoly, but he hastened to appropriate the information by offering his opinion on it. "Low-level apparently. Probably more of a monitor than an operator. Bet he was put in place to listen and report, or to track the ship's movements."

"Wonder which branch he's working for." There were many, many roots and branches to 妈妈 青日Māma Qīng Rì's network of operatives. The Corporation was vast, and coordination between the different branches was much more fractured than anyone liked to admit.

"Or which agency. Just because he flashed a Blue Sun sign doesn't mean he's working for 妈妈 青日Māma Qīng Rì," Anatoly said smugly. Anatoly considered the possibilities. The guy could be an agent of the Covert Operations Agency or the Bureau of Investigations; and there were other Alliance government agencies as well, that maintained investigators. The Bureau of Taxation and Revenue, for example, and the Illegal Narcotics Interdiction Agency, not to mention various branches of federal law enforcement. Local law enforcement could also be conducting a sting, and one shouldn't forget the far reach of the Parliamentary Operatives, who were given carte blanche to do as they pleased. They had been known to disguise themselves as any of the above, and even as Blue Hands. But Anatoly kept his thoughts to himself.

"Oh," Boromiro said, his face clearly expressing, _huh, hadn't thought of that._

"Could be a Fed. Government agents have access to certain Blue Sun signs and codes. Low level ones are more commonly known than you'd imagine." Boromiro couldn't imagine anything. He was so unimaginative.

"Huh. Okay, so some agent of some unknown branch of government or Blue Sun has been tracking this ship or monitoring this ship….Any idea for how long?"

"Can't tell you that. If I did I'd have to shoot you," Anatoly answered with a smirk. Truth was, he hadn't heard that bit of information. He hadn't really heard the other part, either, _Boromiro_ had, but Anatoly had already so thoroughly appropriated the information that now he believed he'd gathered it when he was setting up for a recent elite conference. They'd shooed him out of the room before they got down to brass tacks, but he'd drawn his inferences from what they'd been saying before they banished him. He was smarter than they realized, putting it together for himself. But he couldn't resist the urge to speculate, and yank Boromiro's chain a bit more. "Swear you to secrecy?"

Boromiro nodded.

"Pinky swear?"

"这是什么 Zhè shì shénme, Anatoly!"

"Just messing with you. But you can't tell anyone. I think the guy's been tracking them for months."

"Oohh, like a sleeper agent!"

Anatoly hadn't considered that possibility. Wow. But he played it like Boromiro was being ridiculous. "Don't be stupid, Boromiro. This isn't James Bond. Far more likely the guy is just a monitor. He reports to his handler on a regular basis." This was pure speculation on Anatoly's part; he had no basis whatsoever for saying that.

Boromiro was actually impressed. Anatoly was more in the know than he'd figured. But he didn't let on, and fixed a clueless expression on his face. "I wonder who the handler is."

"Well that'd be pretty simple to figure out, wouldn't it? Just check out who the guy communicates with on a regular basis. One of them is the handler."

"He wouldn't be that dumb, would he? Just call up his handler?"

"Why not?"

"Wouldn't he use a dead drop? Or pass a secret coded message through a third party?"

"You've been watching too many spy shows on the cortex, Boromiro," Anatoly scoffed.

"Don't knock it! Lots of those spy shows are written by ex-agents!"

"Fiction, Boromiro. They _make stuff up_. They've spent their whole careers deceiving the public. Why should they stop after they retire from service?"

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

妈妈 青日Māma Qīng Rì [Mother Blue Sun]

这是什么 Zhè shì shénme [What the hell]

* * *

_So here's the first appearance of the Blue Hand Wannabes...let me know what you think._


	8. Chapter 8

Ends with a Horse, Part 4a

_Kaylee and Inara have some girl talk._

* * *

It had been way too long since they'd had one of their comfortable girl-talks, to Kaylee's way of thinking. But it seemed everybody had just been out of sorts recently, and last time she'd tried to talk to Inara, it was a disaster—she'd upset Inara in just about every possible way. It was difficult, managing the mood swings, queasiness, and sudden urges of early pregnancy, not to mention just being gorram _tired_ all the time—and cranky too. And even though Kaylee was the pregnant one, Inara sure had been moody—jealous, angry, and all kinds of unreasonable, particularly if a body happened to mention the Captain and his obvious depression at being out of Inara's good graces.

So Kaylee was mighty relieved when Inara welcomed her to her shuttle like her old self. Friendly-like and smiling. Soon Inara was brushing Kaylee's hair and they were chattering up a storm. Inara always kept up with current events and the latest trends—both professional training and simply out of habit, Kaylee supposed. So she just asked Inara what was new in the world of fashion, and it weren't long before the Companion had Kaylee's hair pinned up in the manner that a certain Londinium celebrity had worn at a recent red carpet event.

"Hmm," Kaylee considered, moving her head carefully from side to side and contemplating the hairstyle in the mirrors. "I'm not so sure about this. Maybe would work better if I were the type what wore long dangly earrings…"

"Oh, that can easily be arranged," Inara replied, and fished in her jewelry box for something suitable.

"Huh," Kaylee said, when the earrings were installed. "Yeah, I can kinda see it. Don't match with coveralls, though, and I can't see wearin' my hair this way in the engine room. Not to mention those dangly earrings 'd be sure to snag on something."

"You're right," Inara replied, enjoying the feeling of easy friendliness she'd found again with Kaylee. 亲爱的佛 Qīn'àide Fó, how she'd missed these girl-times with Kaylee. How little time she'd spent feeling like a _girl_ lately!

Gettin' her hair brushed and styled by Inara always made Kaylee feel a bit like a princess—much prettier than usual, and definitely more pampered. Weren't long before Kaylee had Inara all filled in about Simon's proposal. The ring was examined and pronounced exquisite, the exact wording of the proposal and the nuances of gesture were recounted in detail, and Simon's good qualities were extolled. Kaylee began elaborating on the special qualities of engagement sex.

"Well, I'll take your word for it," Inara said with a smile. "It's not something I would know about."

"Oh, you're kiddin' me, Inara!" Kaylee exclaimed. "You know everything about everything when it comes to sex."

"Hmm. It's true I have studied the subject somewhat." The smile remained in Inara's voice.

"I'll say. I bet you know every last thing when it—"

"When it comes to engagement sex, however, I have to admit that I have no personal experience with it whatsoever."

"Aw, c'mon Inara. Ain't nobody never asked you to marry them?"

"Oh, lots of times. But only one of them really meant it."

"Whaddya mean?"

"I mean that it's not really all that rare for a client to be, shall we say, _carried away_ with enthusiasm? So yes, I've had offers."

"How romantic!"

"Not really."

"Inara, how could it _not_ be—"

"Now, Kaylee, I'm not talking about the 'enthusiastic' ones so much—their puppy-love is endearing, but it is hardly profound. No, what I meant is—I've received a lot of offers from men who were looking to enhance their standing by forming an alliance with a Companion."

"Formin' an alliance?" Kaylee's enthusiasm was somewhat diminished and her voice took on a tone of somewhat puzzled dismay.

"There are many men who see their association with a Companion as a measure of status. If they can persuade a Companion to stay exclusive to them—as their Personal Companion, for example—then they look to benefit greatly from that Companion's skills. Not just _that_," she rolled her eyes, "though of course they think of that, too. No, Kaylee, unfortunately many of them have no more idea of romance than a bull in a boudoir. What they really want is exclusive access to a Companion's network of contacts and her sphere of influence, and the leverage to persuade her to employ that influence solely for their advancement. Of course, the benefits of the bedchamber and male bragging rights are also on their minds."

"Oh." Kaylee looked like a kid whose shiny balloon had just popped. "Well, when ya put it that way, it don't sound so romantic. So you been proposed to a lot then?

"Rather frequently."

"How many times?"

"I don't keep notches on a bedpost, Kaylee. And Companions don't talk about their clients, Kaylee. Let's just say that I've had offers on a regular basis, ever since my first year as a fully qualified Companion. Both offers of Personal Companionship and offers of marriage."

"Were you ever tempted to accept?"

"Only once, Kaylee," Inara replied, remembering the heartfelt sincerity of Mal's unpremeditated proposal on the Bandiagara rooftop. "Only once."

"Oooh! Tell me about it," Kaylee exclaimed, enthusiasm revived.

"Oh, I most definitely will not!" Inara replied, with what she hoped was a laugh in her voice. She trusted that it was enough, because she certainly had no intention of talking about Mal's offer of marriage. "A Companion doesn't kiss and tell. So now you see, I really don't have any experience with engagement sex. _You're_ the expert there." She smiled at Kaylee, and hoped the diversion would take.

"Sure don't feel like any kind of expert," Kaylee replied, "but I can't complain. It's new territory for me, Inara. It's kinda funny, because I always thought I knew so much about boys, growin' up with four brothers and hangin' out at Daddy's machine shop an' all."

Inara raised her eyebrows as a signal for Kaylee to tell her more.

"Boys ain't no mystery to me, Inara. I seen boys of every age, in every state of undress and every kind of mood. Baby boys in diapers and little boys havin' tantrums, young boys tellin' jokes about 屁 pì and 鼻屎 bíshǐ and laughin' at everything gross. Boys moonin' over their first crush. Teenage boys skinny dippin' and lusting after older girls what won't give 'em the time of day. So boys ain't no mystery. But Simon is. He's more than what meets the eye. He ain't just a pretty face—though he _is_ pretty easy on the eyes." The two women nodded in agreement on that point. "He's got real depth to him," Kaylee continued. "It ain't just that he's a brilliant doctor from the Core. He's got a depth of caring like no man I ever seen. Well, except maybe the Cap'n. But that's different—Cap'n's like a big brother to me—my 哥哥 gēgē, just as he's Zoe's 弟弟 dìdi."

"Zoe's _弟弟__dìdi__?"_ Inara repeated. It was as if Kaylee had been privy to her thoughts.

"Of course. He's the Captain, but _Zoe's_ the older sibling." Kaylee looked at Inara in astonishment. "What, ain't you never noticed? All them times when Zoe _orders _the Cap'n to take charge? You seen it. He's got leadership skills and all, but it's Zoe what provides the anchor. Keeps him tethered, keeps him from flyin' off course. Well, most of the time." Kaylee grew thoughtful. "It don't always work. There was a while when…" she trailed off, and glanced nervously at Inara. Then, she bit the bullet and continued. "When you left for the Training House, Inara, there weren't nothin' Zoe could do or say. Cap'n got into one of his moods and Zoe just couldn't manage him like you do, Inara."

"Like _I_ do?"

"Like you do, Inara," Kaylee stated, as if it were an indisputable fact. "Man would climb the highest mountain, ford the deepest stream, if you said it was the right thing to do. He relies on you for his compass. When you were away at the Training House, it was like he was on the drift, didn't know which way to turn. Took one bad job after another, strayin' away into worse and worse situations, like he'd lost his way in the woods and couldn't see a clear path."

"I don't have anything to do with what jobs he takes," Inara refuted. "He never even consults me."

"That's what you think," Kaylee replied. "Maybe he don't ask, but he's still guided by you. All you gotta do is blink your eye or wave your little finger, he knows how to read it, and he responds. You're kiddin' me that you haven't seen that, aren't you? 'Cause you're so good at reading people."

. . .

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.

.

glossary

亲爱的佛 Qīn'àide Fó [Dear Buddha]

屁 pì [farts]

鼻屎 bíshǐ [snot]

哥哥 gēgē [older brother]

弟弟 dìdi [younger brother]

* * *

_Hope you enjoyed this scene. Comments and reviews are very welcome._


	9. Chapter 9

Ends with a Horse, Part 4b

_Inara makes some realizations._

. . .

Mal was sulking on the bridge, Inara knew. People on Serenity mostly respected the bridge as the Captain's domain, and rarely invaded it, unless they had business there. When Mal wanted to make himself inaccessible, he retreated to the bridge. He was there now, and he was avoiding her.

She wanted to forgive and seek forgiveness. She'd been wrong about him and Zoe. Her reaction had been immature. Of course, his reaction—hiding—was immature, too.

She knew she had no real grounds for believing in his infidelity, and yet somehow she was still having a hard time letting go. Why was that so? There were a number of reasons, and she couldn't run from them indefinitely. She had to face them. The course of study at Companion Academy involved considerable attention to human psychology. It was time she used those skills to analyze herself.

It irked her that Mal did not understand that she could continue to work as a Companion and still be his lover. Anytime they even approached the subject, he just got upset, wouldn't talk, and wouldn't listen. He simply equated her work as a Companion to a betrayal of their love. That angered her.

She didn't see her work as a betrayal. There was a fundamental difference between client services and her relationship with Mal. Sex was only one category of the caring services she performed. People assumed that _every_ client wanted sexual services, but that was simply not true. She wondered if Mal even really understood that most of her work did not involve having sex with clients. She didn't think it had even occurred to him.

She wasn't an idiot: she understood that a lover might expect sexual exclusivity—that was just human psychology. It was perfectly clear to her that Mal expected it, although he had not asked it of her. She had given it without his asking. Until his seeming betrayal and her aggrieved reaction, she had adhered rigidly to a policy of no conjugal clients. Her scheduling of one on Beaumonde in the immediate aftermath of their fight now struck her as childishly spiteful, tit-for-tat.

She faced the hard truth: she was having a hard time letting go of the idea of Mal's infidelity because she had _acted_ on the assumption that he was unfaithful, and took a conjugal client while on Beaumonde. She knew she had to tell him. She would not feel easy until that fact had been aired—and forgiven.

They were attempting to rebuild their relationship. The foundation was still there: the love each had felt for the other almost from the moment they met. It had taken them a while to recognize that it was more than simple physical attraction that drew them towards each other. It was a love both strong and deep, so strong in fact that they'd been unable to deny it. It had propelled them together like the force of gravity. But the structure they had built upon that strong foundation was fragile and volatile, easily blown apart by the sheer force of their stubbornness, and easily ignited into flames by anger. These were faults that they both shared. Jealousy added fuel to the fire; silence kept the ashes banked on the smoldering ruins beneath. They needed to be stronger and more open, to rebuild with communication, compassion, and compromise.

Inara was quite willing to compromise. She didn't have to take conjugal clients. But only if Mal would agree not to interfere with her work when it didn't involve sex. He needed not only not to stand in her way, but to support her. To stand _with_ her, not in opposition, to help and encourage her, to forward her career. To be her partner in all senses of the word.

Mal shouldn't expect her to tolerate his interference in her business. He didn't tolerate interference in his business—from her or anyone else. And yet there was a fine line between non-interference, and allowing a partner to pursue a self-destructive path. It did seem to her that he might be amenable to suggestion and guidance. Was this what Kaylee was talking about, when she claimed that Inara already knew how to "manage" Mal? She might be his compass. She might guide Mal away from egregious criminality and self-destructive acts, and toward the nobility of purpose that he exhibited on occasion but seemed to feel he couldn't often afford to act upon. And he might guide her—where? She was uncertain of the destination, but felt that her future was here, on this ship Serenity, and inextricably linked to his.

Her past life was filled with material richness, a seeming wealth of choices. She might return to the Training House or to Sihnon, even to House Madrassa itself, and resume that lifestyle. The prospect of having basic needs met as a matter of course, of living in a place where her status was unquestioned and her profession was respected—it was enticing. But she was beginning to recognize it for exactly what it was: a gilded cage. It was her instinctive sense that the cage door was beginning to close upon her that had prompted her to escape that life three years ago, to flee to the Black. Living aboard Serenity—and that meant with Mal, for he and his ship were interconnected in every possible way—gave her freedom, and the means of living her dreams. It was wealth of another kind, intangible and priceless.

It was about the journey, not the destination. _How you get there is the worthier part._

Her relationship with Mal was part of that journey.

She could not forget how he had offered her his heart—the marriage proposal slipping out of his mouth almost inadvertently as he wished that the happiness and easy relations they had enjoyed on the remote world of Bandiagara might last forever. It was a heartfelt and genuine offer, and even though she thought it was premature and perhaps unrealistic, she loved him for it.

Zoe was wrong, she thought, remembering. No, Mal didn't bungle the proposal. The proposal was beautiful. Yes, it took her by surprise. It took him by surprise as well. But Mal could have done it in no other way that could have so completely convinced her of his sincerity. She'd had other offers…mostly from men who wanted to take advantage of her Companion status to enlarge their fortunes. Everyone knew Companions had connections, and the skills to use them. Marriage with a Companion typically made the career of any man fortunate enough to persuade one to throw in her lot with his. It was a fact that power-seeking individuals tried to woo Companions for the sake of their connections, and the Academy had entire courses of study devoted to the subject of how to avoid entrapment by clients. It was the reason why most Companions chose not to marry at all, unless it was entirely at their own instigation. That's what her own mother had done: chose her husband, and asked _him,_ not the other way around. Those other offers Inara had mentioned to Kaylee—those clients had tried to sweep Inara off her feet with fancy dinners, romantic getaways, and expensive jewelry. Not Mal. Only Mal could ask her to marry him in the half-light before dawn, while lying buck naked on an adobe rooftop, exposed to the sky of a remote planet at the ass-end of the 'Verse.

Although now that she thought about it, that wasn't really his first proposal, was it? Even before their first kiss he had offered himself, everything, to her acceptance. _"Everything I got, everything I am, my heart, my love—it all belongs to you, if you want."_ His words were a paraphrase of old wedding vows: _'all that I am and all that I have, I give to thee.' _仁慈的佛 Réncí de Fó, Kaylee was right. Maybe she did know all about engagement sex. Sex that was not merely for mutual pleasure and comfort, but that was truly an expression of love. That was why it was different with Mal. What she had with him was not just sex. It was more than that, and it always had been, with him.

She now recognized that some of her hostility towards Zoe had stemmed from Zoe's presumption that she thought Mal didn't measure up somehow, that she thought he wasn't good enough for her. She didn't like anyone thinking that Mal wasn't good enough. Of course he was good enough. She was the judge of that. She had accepted him, and everything he offered, right from the beginning of their intimate relationship. And she wouldn't put up with anyone disparaging her—

Her _what?_ Exactly what was Mal, to her? Her lover. Her boyfriend. Her fiancé—almost. The man who would be her husband. The only man she had any inclination at all to marry. The only one who would marry her for herself alone, without expecting to profit from her professional connections and political skills. The one who truly loved her. Whom she loved.

There. She'd said it. She loved him.

Even if it were only to herself, it was an acknowledgement she'd avoided making, because of the complications that ensued when a Companion fell in love.

Complications. Yes, indeed. Mal had said it himself, many a time. Shipboard relationships complicated things. But Inara knew better than to limit it to aboard ship. _Relationships_ complicated life, no matter when or where. It made it more difficult to navigate the bumps and snags along the path. It was easy to mistake one's way. Especially if one continued to consider one's needs solo, instead of considering the needs of the other, and their needs together, as she had.

She had refused to talk to him about what had made her angry.

She saw him with Zoe, saw and heard some things that gave her reason to think he was cheating on her. And then she had cut off every attempt he made to explain, isolating herself in her attempt to punish him for infidelity. She had accused him, and wouldn't listen to his defense. She shut him out, and shut out anybody who tried to tell her she was wrong. Made herself miserable, made _him_ miserable—she could see it now.

仁慈的佛 Réncí de Fó, she _was_ Leontes, like River had said. She had imagined that there was something more than friendship between Mal and Zoe, then gathered around her only the evidence that supported her false conclusion. The others had told her, each in their own way, that she was wrong, but she wouldn't listen. And in her anger she had done to him exactly what she had accused him of doing to her. She had slept with someone else.

And while she was still in the midst of her anger—and still struggling with her inconsistent and self-destructive behavior in taking the conjugal client—Saffron turned up and sowed discord—in spades. She could see it more clearly now. Saffron had pitted her and Mal against each other—provoking her jealousy, playing on his insecurities.

She hoped they'd cleared the air between them regarding Saffron, but she wasn't entirely sure. The one time they escorted Saffron together, Saffron had drawn her out, allowing Inara to play her—and it wasn't until she saw Mal's face that she realized Saffron was using _her_ to play Mal, the real target. He had looked incredibly pained, and he wouldn't listen and wouldn't talk about it when she tried to reassure him that she didn't think of him as a clinical test case. Did he really think she would ever treat him like that?

He was different. He was her _lover_—completely different from any of her clients. He was, in fact, the _only_ lover she'd ever had. Her connections to her clients, though honest and sincere, only went so far. Her connection to him was soul-deep, and reached a level that she had never attained with anybody else. He surely understood that.

Or did he? She was sure she had told him. Clients were clients. _He_ was her lover. She loved him. She hadn't yet told him so in those exact words, but she had made it perfectly clear, hadn't she?

Still, Saffron aside, they'd not really settled the other, more serious division between them. He wanted to talk about it, indeed he insisted upon talking about it. She had tried to avoid it, offering to forgive and forget, foolishly hoping that it didn't need to be aired. She should have known it wouldn't work. He was an honorable man, thief as he was, and the questions of fidelity the incident had raised had called his honor into question. He wouldn't rest until he had defended himself. He demanded that she listen. He presented his case and left her to come to her own conclusions. Since then he had hidden out on the bridge, in his domain. He would not seek her out. He expected her to come to him.

He expected her to come to him, the 混蛋 húndàn, to come and grovel. Anger surged through her again. Who was he to—?

She stopped. _Wait. Where was this crazy anger and jealousy coming from?_ Even she recognized how 疯了 fēngle it was. He hadn't betrayed _her_. But she might have betrayed _him_. She broke up with him (a break-up he hadn't accepted—she saw that now) and then she took a conjugal client. She had done it knowing it would hurt him if he knew. He still didn't suspect it, and she owed him honesty. Tears streamed down her face. _Get control of yourself, Inara. Control is a Companion's first lesson, and the last. _ A sob hitched in her chest. _Engage your passions in what you do, but do not let them govern you. _Things had been going so _well._ He'd been kind and considerate. He'd asked her to _marry _him, and what had she done? _She had ruined it_. She sank down onto her bed, clutching her pillow, and the floodgates opened. She lay there sobbing her heart out into her pillow, more like a star-crossed teenager than a mature woman, unable to stem the tide of grief.

Some time later, she did not know how long, she had cried herself out. She sat up and tried to take stock of things. Why couldn't she control her emotions? Anger, jealousy, tears—a rocky roller coaster of crazy emotions. Where was the calm and content person that she thought she was? How had she lost her serenity so completely? Granted, Mal had _always_ been capable of damaging her calm and provoking her to uncontrolled behavior. _No one_ did it more effectively. But this was different—uncontrolled waves of anger, bolts of jealousy out of the blue, unexpected crying jags. When had she become so emotionally unstable?

"_Mood swings and emotional instability are some of the symptoms of skipping treatments,"_ Dr Schneider's voice echoed in her head. She had skipped too many treatments. She was a wreck. She was going completely 疯了 fēngle. Was this what happened when you skipped amelioration therapy? Had she even remembered to take her medication regularly? Much as she hated the painful treatments, she needed to schedule more therapy on Bernadette. Terrible thoughts raced through her head. What if this was something worse, something that the treatments couldn't help?

_What was wrong with her?_

. . .

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glossary

仁慈的佛 Réncí de Fó [Merciful Buddha]

混蛋 húndàn [bastard]

疯了 fēngle [crazy]

* * *

_Anybody care to speculate as to what, exactly, is going on with Inara? Your comments and reviews are welcome._


	10. Chapter 10

Ends with a Horse, Part 5a

_Mal waves the buyer and Simon does surgery_

* * *

Dealings on Core planets always made Mal uneasy. Gave him a sense of being trapped, like a rat in a maze. The urban setting, the tall buildings and narrow streets like a corral—fence you in so you can't hardly see the sky. The streets all crawling with Feds of one sort or another. The sensors and cameras he knew were trained on him from the moment he hit dirt. When he was ashore in the Core, his Ident Card sat like an armed grenade in his pocket, ready to explode in his face if anybody stopped him for any reason and ran it through a scanner. Defeated Browncoat, internment camp inmate, Shadow native, bound by law on numerous occasions. It was nothin' short of a miracle that he'd never been convicted of anything. Any one of those things would be reason enough for the Feds to harass him, and a few—an outstanding warrant, for instance, or word getting out about his role in the Miranda broadwave—would get his 屁股 pìgu hauled off to jail. All those things might easily be discovered should the Law stop him, demand identification, and run his Ident Card through a scanner.

That's why it was so tempting to use his fake Ident Card while in the Core. But that wasn't possible this time. The legitimate cargo he carried, the shiny legal contract with "Malcolm Reynolds" writ on it in bold letters, required that he do business on Bernadette under his own real name.

The cargo was perfectly legal, but nonetheless Mal had an uneasy feeling about it. That fine and upstanding company Holden Brothers had hired him to carry a perfectly legal load of Beaumonde manufactured goods, with papers on it and tariffs pre-paid. He also carried Ip's science experiments and some custom-made lab equipment to be delivered to Harcliffe University, both completely legal and above-board. Perhaps there really was nothing to worry about. Of course, there also were some bags of illegally exported timonium crystals from Bandiagara that he had yet to fence, and likewise there was the illegal corporate spying part of the Holden Brothers deal, but Buck Holden had purposely kept Mal in the dark about that. He didn't know what the secret was, where it was hidden, or even what to look for—all he knew was that this time, the buyer of the legal cargo was also Buck Holden's contact about the surreptitious part, and would presumably know what to do about the whole gorram cloak-and-dagger business.

Rambod al-Siddiq didn't look like the cloak-and-dagger type. Well-to-do businessman, enterprising individual, the kind who was active in the local Chamber of Commerce. Not a Fed himself, if Mal was any judge, but the kind who cultivated a good relationship with the Feds, and used it to his advantage. Not the type to have much sympathy for an Independent like him, and most definitely not the type to have any truck with a smuggler and thief. Accordingly, Mal was dressed, not in his customary brown uniform trousers, earth-tone shirt, and suspenders, but in what he thought of as his "Core-going" clothes: blue button-down shirt and charcoal grey trousers with a belt. He needed to make the right impression—that is to say, a completely misleading one.

"We're about nine days out," Mal informed him. "Should break atmo next Thursday. What coordinates would you like us to deliver to?"

"Shinjuku Spaceport, of course," Mr al-Siddiq replied. "Once you've settled up with Port Authority, contact my office, and my representative will supervise the unloading onto local transport."

"Oh, right, understood," Mal acknowledged, trying to hide his surprise. He'd thought that with corporate secrets hidden somewhere within the cargo, al-Siddiq would have come to the spaceport himself, to oversee the transaction personally. "So I won't be meeting with you, then?"

"I'll contact you myself," al-Siddiq responded, "once you're on the ground. Mr Holden gave you the highest recommendation, and I'm interested in engaging your services on behalf of Siddiq Enterprises, if you're not otherwise contracted."

"We might come to an agreement." Mal raised his eyebrows—there were circles within circles, apparently, with all of Holden's cloak-and-dagger nonsense. Still—the spying part aside—the cargo was perfectly legal, and the pay was good. Buck was seeing to it that he got his way paid both to and from the spying drop points, and if he was going to play courier in this corporate spy game, had to say he preferred a cover story where he was a well-paid successful freighter captain, rather than a scruffy, down-at-the-heel cargo-hauler who could barely make ends meet.

"Good. I'll arrange to have an invitation sent to you."

An _invitation?_ To _what?_ Some kind of shindig? Apparently the Bernadettiens had a different way of doing business than folk on Rim worlds like Whitefall. All of Patience's business "invitations" had come along with bullets, at no extra charge.

"Sounds straightforward enough," he said, reaching to hook his thumbs under his non-existent suspenders.

"Of course. Why wouldn't it be?"

"No reason I can think of," Mal replied, trying to sound easy and genuine. "See you in the world." He cut the connection and fell into a muse.

. . .

"You're nearly as bad as the Captain, you know," Simon remarked, as he prepped her knee for surgery. Zoe was lying on the infirmary table, fully conscious, while Simon administered a spinal block and began the surgical repair. "The swelling is down a bit, good enough for surgery, but not as much as I'd have expected, given that the injury occurred a week ago. But you really haven't been resting."

Zoe's only reply was a lifted eyebrow, but it was enough for Simon. "I was hoping you would actually keep off the leg entirely for two or three days, and spend more time resting it in an elevated position. You've been rather active, shall we say, since the injury occurred."

Zoe gave a tiny smile. "Well, Doc, there was the matter of a certain 贱货泼妇 jiàn huò pōfù needed keeping in line."

"You're in no condition for physical confrontation, and you know it," Simon retorted with physicianly authority. He relented somewhat. "Still, if it were the Captain in your position, I suppose I would have had to sedate him or put him in restraints to get him to keep off his leg at all. Perhaps I should be grateful for your powers of self-control."

"Only thing that kept me from murdering the 他妈的 不要脸 说谎者 tāmādē bùyàoliǎn shuōhuǎngzhě and spacing the body." Zoe kept her eyes on Simon, who for his part, kept his focus on the surgical procedure underway out of Zoe's view, beyond the drape.

"While that would have been a satisfying short-term solution, I have to agree with the Captain that it doesn't solve the problem in the long-term." Simon paused. He lapsed into silence for a time, and focused his attention on the procedure he was performing. Some time later, he added, "The Blue Hands are relentless in their pursuit."

He wondered, sometimes, if Zoe blamed him and River for Wash's death. Had he and his sister not taken refuge on Serenity, doubtless Mal would have continued with his obscure life of smuggling, low-key theft, and petty crime, for the most part avoiding the notice of the authorities. His and River's fugitive status had brought unwanted attention to the ship, and made it much more difficult for Captain Reynolds to fly under the radar where he liked to be. Simon didn't have a personal basis for comparison, obviously, not having been there before he came aboard, but he had gathered as much from little comments made by the others. Jayne's evident glee at the more frequent dust-ups. Inara's complaints, mostly directed at the Captain, that they no longer stopped at civilized planets where she could conduct her business. Even Wash himself, with his delight at having his flying skills more frequently challenged. Until the final test, the crash-landing that Wash handled so skillfully, a successful outcome with no loss of life—until the Reaver harpoon pierced his chest and severed his aorta, and not even timely and expert surgical skills could have saved him. They never would have been in such a position—chased by a fleet of Reavers, in possession of the Alliance's dirty secret, anywhere _near_ Miranda—had he and River not come aboard. Wash would still be alive, and looking forward to fatherhood. Zoe would be happy and—

"I'm so sorry, Zoe."

"What? Somethin' wrong with the knee?"

"What? Oh, no. The knee's fine," Simon blathered, before regaining his surgeon's cool. What was this? Wool-gathering while performing surgery. He ought not to not let his mind wander, but the procedure was so straightforward he had allowed himself to do so. "Actually, the procedure's going very well. The damage to the anterior cruciate ligament is less severe than I was anticipating." He resumed placing interwoven microsutures in the ligament, and the confident surgeon was back in charge.

. . .

"S.O.B?" Zoe inquired incredulously. "Who's an S.O.B? And—I really can't believe you wrote that in your medical records, Simon."

Simon glanced down at the screen, puzzled. He had inadvertently opened Jayne's medical record, instead of Zoe's. Zoe really shouldn't be reading over his shoulder, but she couldn't exactly move away, since both her legs were still immobilized by anesthesia. He hadn't taken the precaution to block her line of sight to his screen, seeing as he had merely to notate in her chart the successful outcome of her knee surgery, of which fact he had already informed her. "Oh, sorry, Zoe, that's Jayne's medical record."

"Doc, I know you two don't always see eye to eye, but ain't that a bit…well, vicious?"

"Vicious?" Simon was confused. He looked at the record. Under the heading "Jayne Cobb," subheading for the detonator accident leading to cardiac arrest, he'd written the standard abbreviation for "shortness of breath," and then a straightforward note to follow up on Jayne's levels of creatine kinase, muscular form. What was—? Oh. _That. _ He chuckled as he re-read the abbreviations. "S.O.B. F/U CK-M." It indeed looked like he was out to get Jayne.

"Oh, 胡扯 húchě!" Zoe laughed, when Simon explained the medical shorthand. "So who said the medical profession don't have a sense of humor? You really weren't kidding when you said you had funny stories about bein' a doctor."

Simon smiled, and filled in Zoe's chart. _"__Arthroscopic repair, type 3a tear of the right medial collateral ligament with Grossman interwoven suture technique. 105 semi-absorbable MediRex sutures. Minimal blood loss. Adequate hemostasis. Open time 17 min. Spinal block placed via L2-L3, 10,000u buffered habbicaine over 21 min.__,"_ he wrote, by way of a surgical note. More verbose than his usual, prompted by Zoe's admonishment, but definitely briefer than he might have written back on Osiris, with coding specialists and potential auditors looking over his shoulder.

"You'll need to use the crutches again for a short time, Zoe. I'm afraid you'll have to stay in the passenger dorm again until it's safe to go up and down ladders."

Zoe nodded. She wasn't looking forward to sleeping away from her own bed, but Simon was right. She couldn't manage the ladder in her bunk, six months pregnant and with a knee that didn't work.

"You've got to keep the weight off it for about a day. Then I'll fit you with a brace again, and we can begin mobility therapy. We'll ask Inara about using her bathtub, to do non-weight-bearing exercises to increase range of motion and strengthen the muscles.

Zoe acknowledged, then pursued their earlier line of discussion. "So you agree with the Captain that Saffron's got partners elsewhere as would come lookin' for her if she went missing."

"How else would she have acquired all those electronic devices?" he responded, as he checked over the record of her vital signs and transferred it into her chart. "Kaylee told me that the kind of gear she had is not to be found in your standard Border world electronics shop."

Zoe shrugged. "Could be workin' for the Feds."

"Could be," he agreed. "But if she were, why wouldn't the Alliance simply board and arrest us all? What's the point of harassing us and sneaking around like that? I mean, as you point out, you wanted to kill her. Why put herself at risk like that?"

"Captain's right that she was up to something."

"The question is what, isn't it?" He closed Zoe's case file, and turned back to the first mate as an insight struck him. "River had an idea that she was installing some kind of Trojan horse software."

"She did? Why didn't she say so?"

"She tried. River's been…well, you've seen it. Her brain's so scrambled after the Blue Hands used the safeword—"

"They _did?_"

"Yes. One of them said part of the phrase, before Ip distracted the guy he recognized, and River seized the opportunity to break his neck. He never finished speaking the phrase, but it seems that hearing even part of it has an affect on River. Anyway, she tried to tell me that she suspected Saffron was installing malware, specifically a Trojan horse virus."

"Why didn't you tell the Captain? Or me?"

"Because I really didn't understand what she was saying. I've only just now figured it out."

Zoe was silent, thinking.

"You and the Captain and River were on the bridge looking for malware. Did you find anything?"

"No. But it seems to me we'd stand a better chance, knowin' what we're lookin' for." Zoe tried to sit up, before she remembered that she couldn't go anywhere in her current condition. "Doc, will you call the Captain, and tell him what you just told me?"

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

屁股 pìgu [ass]

贱货泼妇 jiàn huò pōfù [cheap floozy]

他妈的 不要脸 说谎者 tāmādē bùyàoliǎn shuōhuǎngzhě [gorram shameless liar]

胡扯 húchě [shut up, get out]

* * *

_Thanks to all who reviewed and speculated last chapter. I welcome your feedback._


	11. Chapter 11

Ends with a Horse, Part 5b

_Simon sees a man about a horse, and Serenity's resident scientist dissects Inara's relationship with the Captain._

* * *

"She told me, 'Gotta see a man about a horse.' I think she meant to tell you to look for a Trojan horse virus."

"But she never told me that," Mal said.

"She was exhausted. The effort of remaining coherent long enough to make that realization wore her out. I remember taking her to her room, right after she said that. I settled her in, and she fell asleep immediately. I suppose she didn't follow-up on it with you, and I didn't make the connections."

"Still doesn't give us much to go on."

"You know it'll be masquerading as benign software," Simon corrected.

"You done any software updates recently, sir?"

"I downloaded the navigational updates right after we left Beaumonde, Zoe," Mal replied, "but that was before Saffron was even out of the box. Don't see how she coulda worked that to install a Trojan horse. I went straight to the Space Traffic Control cortex site for them, same as usual."

Zoe gave the Captain one of those silent looks that Simon couldn't read at all, but Mal clearly understood it, because he replied, "We're headed to _Bernadette_, Zoe. The gorram Core. Controlled space traffic the whole way, soon as we pass Santo. No way I would forego nav currency. All's I'd need is to be in the Core, and get busted for not havin' up-to-date nav software on a routine traffic stop. Would ruin my day."

It would do much more than ruin _his_ day, Simon guessed. Zoe clearly understood the fuller implications of the Captain's statement, for she held Mal's eye for a long second, nodded, and said, "Understood, sir."

. . .

Ip knocked politely on the shuttle door and waited for an invitation to enter. He enjoyed occasional conversations with Inara, but it was rare that they had a tête-à-tête, and even rarer than he should seek her out for that purpose.

Inara answered the door with an expression on her face that was clearly meant for the Captain. She immediately reconfigured her features, but her surprise was evident.

"I'm afraid I interrupted you," Ip said.

"Your visit is unexpected, but it doesn't follow that it's unwelcome," Inara responded, with her customary good manners. Her graciousness had returned, and she invited him in, saw him seated on her sofa, and began preparing tea without even asking if he wanted any.

He was obviously troubled, and wanted to talk. Whether he were in need of counseling or simply needed to unburden himself to a sympathetic listener, Inara was ready. Mal, despite their differences lately, had warned her that she might expect such a visit from Ip, and even without the heads-up from Mal, Inara could see for herself that Ip was still rattled by his close call with the Blue Hands on Beaumonde, and that dealing with Saffron and an edgy crew afterwards hadn't helped him much.

She was a trained counselor, after all—it was part of her education, yet another thing that differentiated Companions from common sex workers. She had noticed that Ip startled easily, that he lacked his usual good humor and positive outlook, and that contrary to his custom, he had avoided the public areas of the ship. She suspected that his redoubled enthusiasm for pursuing his experiments had more to do with distracting himself from troubling thoughts about the Blue Hands than it had to do with the quest for scientific knowledge.

She tried to put him at ease with polite and inconsequential conversation, dropping in subtle hints while she waited for him to give an indication of what direction the unburdening would take. Ip sat, and sighed, and drank the scalding hot green tea rapidly like the Bernadette native he was, but he missed cue after cue, and finally Inara asked, "What can I do for you, Ip?"

It wasn't what she expected. "Inara, you know the Captain better than anyone."

"You think so?" she asked with genuine surprise.

"Yes, of course, you're his…" He hesitated, as he cast about a moment for the right word. "…爱人 àiren." Inara opened her mouth in silent exclamation, but Ip continued without remarking it. "Look, I know you all think I'm about as clueless as a lamp post when it comes to human relationships, and generally I _am_, but even _I_ noticed you and the Captain were a close-knit couple, on my very first journey on Serenity. I'll admit when I first boarded the ship, I assumed he was your client, but it wasn't long before it was obvious, even to _me_, that he treated you like you were his wife. And you never treated him like a client. Now, I _know_ you're technically not married yet," Ip barreled on, without noticing how flustered Inara was becoming at this dissection of her relationship with Mal, "but I figure that's just because he hasn't yet gone through the vetting process, right? I know that the Guild requires Companions who wish to marry to submit their suitors for vetting, especially if they intend to remain active in the profession."

Inara gaped, trying to gather her wits about her for a response.

"So that's why I've come to you," Ip stated, as if it were an obvious conclusion from his preamble. "You see, I'm considering leaving Serenity for good, when we get to Bernadette."

Inara was so flummoxed, by Ip's unexpected assumptions, his succinct analysis, and his seemingly irrelevant conclusion, all delivered with the rapidity of speech customary among Bernadette natives, that she hardly knew what to say. "Leaving Serenity?" she managed.

"Yes. I nearly got _killed_, Inara. I watched River break a man's neck. It's…" He looked at the walls of Inara's shuttle and shifted uncomfortably. "I ought not to stay. And yet I still haven't accomplished my main purpose in being here. I haven't managed to get the Captain to open up about Miranda. That's a damn shame. It's the whole reason I signed on to this ship in the first place."

"Why?" she inquired cautiously, trying to keep any suspicion out of her voice. "What's so important about Miranda?" She wanted to know Ip's reasons. Did he somehow know that they had made the Miranda broadwave? Why was he so eager to talk to _Mal_ in particular, about Miranda?

Obviously she had her own opinion of the significance of Miranda. To her personally, it was a watershed moment, and she suspected it was the same for the rest of Serenity's crew. She had honestly expected the broadwave to have more impact on the 'Verse in general. In the lives of Serenity's crew, the Miranda broadwave loomed in epic proportions, and part of her was disappointed that its impact on the rest of 'Verse had not been similarly epochal. They'd fought and struggled, they'd paid in blood and sweat and tears, and two of their number, and Mr Universe too, had paid with their lives to make that broadwave happen. They'd lost Book and Wash, and Mal and Simon had damn near died as well, just to transmit that message, and she somehow wanted the 'Verse to acknowledge the sacrifice, at the very least.

While she and the others defended the entrance, Mal had gone to make the transmission. When he did not return right away, it was clear that he had encountered obstacles, because he never would have left them to fend for themselves against the Reavers if he could have returned. It was no mere matter of waltzing down there and politely asking Mr Universe to push the "send" button. She remembered how she'd watched and waited, while the elevator remained unmoving, unmoving, unmoving, for so damn long, and she absolutely knew that Mal was in trouble. She wasn't surprised (although she was still shocked by his appearance) when he returned bloody, beaten and stabbed, still standing only because he was too stubborn to lie down and give up. It was obvious that he'd been in a deadly struggle, but it wasn't until the Operative spoke and commanded his soldiers to stand down, that she had any idea what or who Mal had been up against.

The Miranda broadwave had so much less impact than she'd hoped. Yes, it had shocked the system. There were protests—riots, even. Indignant demands for a recall of the entire Parliament. People asked questions and there were Parliamentary hearings. The politicians scrambled to investigate and assign blame and avoid personal responsibility for the debacle. Inara didn't like to agree, but Mal's cynical assessment _("the 'Verse wakes up for a spell, then rolls right over and falls back asleep")_ had proved to be more or less correct. A number of politicians had lost their seats in Parliament in a wave of public outcry. A larger number of politicians had managed to retain their seats in Parliament despite the public outcry. And a certain number of politicians had taken advantage of the public outcry to realign themselves and seize positions of power that before they had only aspired to.

Inara knew how these political games were played. She had seen this world from the inside—had grown up in a household permeated with political maneuvers and deals, where unofficial arrangements were made, and every social occasion was merely cover for the sordid business of politics: the re-assortment of alliances and the distribution of power. There was a reason why she had developed such a distaste for that world. She'd left House Madrassa for an itinerant life to avoid it. She was so tired of being maneuvered into position in someone else's chess match.

She'd grown up in this milieu, and had accepted it as normal when she was a child. As a young girl, she so admired her mother, a beautiful, elegant, intelligent and extremely successful Companion, who had retired merely to be the more effective in promoting her protégés. Inara's father was selected from among the pool of her mother's most successful protégés. There was true fondness between her parents—it was not simply a marriage of convenience—but as she grew older, Inara became aware that much of her parents' success in marriage was based upon a successful political alliance. Romantic love had very little to do with it. The gilded world her mother and father inhabited ceased to be quite so attractive to Inara.

Still, she loved the nurturing aspect of Companioning—helping people, understanding human emotions and relations—and the profession was not a bad fit for her in that way. And although pleasing her parents, particularly her mother, had played a role in her decision to enter the Companion Academy, she was not unhappy with her choice.

Yet the ambitious aspects of it did not sit well with her. Some years after her debut as a Companion, after working successfully on Sihnon and becoming recognized as a rising star of the Guild, Inara was poised to become the next Priestess of House Madrassa. She was surprisingly young for such a position, and Inara had no doubt that the behind-the-scenes maneuvers her mother was so very skilled at had played a considerable role in placing her there. But that was also the point at which she began to appreciate the degree to which she was a square peg in a round hole. She'd been conforming herself to fit in with the world she had chosen, and as she aged, instead of growing smoother and rounder, her rough edges grew sharper and harder. She was a squarer peg than she had realized. And then there was the incident (or perhaps the _cascade of incidents_ would be a better term) that led her to conclude that trying to fit herself into the round hole that had been so carefully prepared for her reception was a bad decision. Worse than bad. A grave mistake. She had abruptly withdrawn her candidacy for the priestesshood, announced that she was taking a sabbatical, and essentially fled Sihnon before anyone could stop her.

At first her friends and family believed she'd been overcome by stress. She'd had a breakdown, and she simply needed a vacation, perhaps a bit of therapy, and she'd get over it and return to them and her old life. Maybe she'd sent messages from a spiritual retreat center on Angel that tended to encourage this view. She had avoided contact with her friends and family until she'd officially severed her connection to House Madrassa and established herself as an independent member of the Guild. In short, she was already renting Mal's shuttle and conducting her business from Serenity, before she let any of her family know what she had done.

They weren't pleased. Particularly her mother, who had invested so much of her energy in her daughter's success. They could barely speak civilly to one another, and their communications were infrequent and formal. Inara's new family on Serenity was unaware that Inara had any living relatives, for she never mentioned them.

"Tell me, Ip," she said, for he had not yet answered her, "about your interest in Miranda. Why is it so critical that you talk to the Captain about this?"

"Because the captain has been there," Ip answered. And he outlined what he knew about the place. It was a Blue Sun subsidiary company, of course, that had done the original terraforming on Miranda, some decades ago. Miranda was promoted as a brave new world, peaceful, idyllic, and utopian. Parliament had approved a special system for the terraforming of Miranda, to make it unlike any world previously opened for settlement. Unlike those many wild and dusty Rim worlds where settlers were landed with a few supplies and a herd, and left to make their way in a rough pioneer existence, Miranda was promoted to the Core population as a high-tech world, with all the comforts of Core civilization, only with the advantages of fresh air, open green space, and no crime. The advertisements showed gleaming modern cities set in a beauteous landscape.

Inara nodded. The picture he painted matched the physical environment she and the crew had encountered when they'd been there—if one discounted the utter _lifelessness_ of the place—and proved that at least some aspects of the advertisements were no lie. But why had the Alliance developed such a high tech world in the Blue Sun System, so far out from the Core? What was the purpose of this far-flung outpost?

Ip continued with his tale, and told her a bit more about how his work at Blue Sun had intersected with what happened on Miranda.

_Oh my_, she thought. _仁慈的佛__Réncí de Fó_. Ip was right. Mal _had_ to hear this.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

爱人 àiren [wife, lover]

_仁慈的佛__Réncí de Fó [Merciful Buddha]_

* * *

_A little bit late posting this...busy weekend at work. Hope you enjoyed that bit of Inara's backstory. I look forward to reading your comments._


	12. Chapter 12

Ends with a Horse, Part 6a

_In which some secrets are revealed. _

* * *

After a quick furtive look to be sure no one was watching him, Jayne swung open the hatch to his bunk and dropped down. Soon as he could reach it, he slapped his hand on the control to close the hatch, hoping that no one had seen or heard anything.

Pee-yoo! Doc weren't kidding about the obnoxious floozy. Kaylee had tipped him off that what the Doc really meant by that was the _smell_, though Jayne didn't know why he couldn't just call it that, 'stead of usin' one of his ten-credit words. Even Jayne had to admit that his bunk was far riper than usual.

It had been more of a challenge than he'd imagined it would be, when he first had the notion. Seemed like it would be easy. Just move 'em on in, let 'em do their thing, and enjoy the benefits.

But no. It weren't so hard movin' 'em in and settin' 'em up in a nice ol' bunch of bedding. But then the trouble started. Had to be real careful, lifting supplies on the quiet from the cargo bay, not too much at a time, so Mal wouldn't get suspicious. He'd thought he could dispose of the waste in his private head, but that turned out to be a bust, since the gorram thing clogged up the first time he tried it, and he had to swipe some of Kaylee's tools surrepti—syrup—_secretly,_ to fix the gorram plumbing. After that, there was nothin' for it but to carry the waste over to the septic vac tank in the cargo bay, the one that had been installed when they transported all them cows to Beylix. No problem with capacity—the gorram thing was huge—but Jayne had found it weren't so easy to _get_ the stuff there. Could only pack a little bit at a time, which meant lots of trips, and each and every time he had to watch out for the others so's he wouldn't get caught.

The noises was a bit of a problem, but he'd solved that by settin' his favorite music wave on continuous play. The Juggling Geese was precisely the right band to provide cover, on account of the noises just blended right in with their songs. The first night he struggled, tryin' to sleep with the music on, but Jayne reckoned himself for a champion sleeper. Could sleep through just about anything, anywheres and anytimes. That night he fell asleep before they did, but they started up loud again at the crack a' dawn. He didn't want to take no chances. Took him a while to find the right rhythm.

And he never woulda guessed at how bad the smell could get. It was, in every sense of the word, foul. Jayne almost wondered if he should just come clean about the whole business, so as to get more air circulation and ease the whole clean-up process. But that would mean sharing with the others, and he weren't ready to do that. Better to keep it secret. So he kept his secret.

Not like there was all that much to share, neither. Just enough for him. Luckily, it cooked up quick and easy, and he was in and out of the galley in the dead of night afore anyone knew he'd been there. And luckily, Mal was well taken up with Inara, makin' up or whatever it was they were callin' their humpin' this time around, so for now he was safe from Mal's nighttime prowling.

So it weren't easy. He had to work for it. Had to suffer for it. But oh, so worth it. So tasty. So dee-licious. It was a tough job, keeping Kung Pao Chicken and General Tso Chicken in his bunk day after day, but Jayne Cobb was a tough man.

"Here ya go," Jayne called, opening the lid of the box. "Brought ya somethin' tasty." He sprinkled a handful of chicken scratch onto the straw in the bottom of the box. General Tso and Kung Pao regarded him with curious beady-eyed stares, and began scratching and pecking. Jayne reached in and retrieved the two eggs they had laid.

. . .

"You know, Ip, what you're saying about Miranda is very interesting. But still I'm not sure why you think the Captain knows something about Miranda beyond what we all learned from that broadwave." She knew well what a danger it could be for all of them if it became generally known that it was Mal who sent the broadwave, and specifically omitted any confirmation.

"The Captain visited Miranda. He said so. He said you all had been there."

"When was that?"

"On Beylix," Ip replied. "The Captain was talking about Reaver raids that had occurred during the war. Each side blamed the other for the atrocities. The Captain recognized the telltale signs of a Reaver raid because he'd seen it before—on Shadow when he was a boy. He said, 'On Miranda, we found out that the Alliance _made_ the Reavers, with that Pax stuff they put in the atmospheric conditioners,'" Ip quoted.

Inara made mental note not to underestimate Ip's memory, nor the sharpness with which he drew inferences.

"The Captain also speculated that Reavers have been using Miranda as a base of operations since the failure of the settlement." He looked Inara in the eye. "You _all_ have been to Miranda, haven't you?"

Inara hid behind her blankest Companion mask. Ip pursued his line of speculation. "No one has explained why Miranda was abandoned."

Inara could respond to this. "It was abandoned because of the Pax and the Reavers."

"No," Ip countered. "The _settlement _failed because of the Pax and the Reavers. But why not discontinue the use of Pax, scrub the atmosphere, put up some defenses, and rebuild the settlement? Why abandon the entire planet?"

Inara shook her head. It was a political problem. She had run from Sihnon to avoid political problems.

"I want to know if there really was a terraforming issue that contributed to the abandonment of Miranda," Ip continued, "or if it was merely a political problem. Terraforming—"

"Political problems can prove to be very intractable, Ip."

"Terraforming problems can be solved," Ip pressed. "You get enough data, analyze it well, think about it enough, and a solution usually presents itself. That's what terraforming science is all about. I don't see why the whole planet couldn't just be restored to habitability—"

"Politics, Ip. I don't think Parliament has the will to deal with Miranda. It's a political hot potato."

"Logic and reason—"

"Rarely carry the day in the political world, Ip. Politics is a very strange beast."

Ip endeavored to convince Inara that science could carry the day. Gather evidence, he said, present it properly, and all right-minded people would see reason. There was no good reason Ip could think of why a solidly constructed scientific report confirming Miranda's terraforming stability wouldn't catalyze the reclamation and resettlement of that world. Inara was just shaking her head at Ip's ignorance of the world of politics. But Ip wasn't nearly finished. "Then there's the matter of Shadow. And, for that world, I really do have some scientific evidence to work with. The data I gathered during our fly-by were limited, but even so, there are some very solid leads that I would like to follow up on. I really want to figure out how terraforming failed on Shadow."

"Why?"

"Because it shouldn't have been possible."

"I thought it was a chain reaction of some kind," Inara responded, citing the common report. "Shadow was bombed during the war. A chance hit struck a terraforming station, and triggered a chain reaction that built up until terraforming failed."

Ip was shaking his head. "Even a direct nuclear strike of a hundred times the force on a single terraforming station should not have been able to destabilize the terraforming of an established planet like Shadow. Sure, you might trigger a faultline slip or even a volcanic eruption. A group of carefully placed nuclear bombs might even trigger a more massive volcanic event. But it still would be limited in scope. What doesn't add up here is the _degree_ of destruction. A single chance strike can't account for the catastrophic failure of the entire system. There are redundancies built into every terraforming system, you know. It wouldn't be pretty, but theoretically it's possible to destroy three or even more terraforming stations on the same tectonic plate without grossly affecting a planet's terraforming stability. What happened on Shadow shouldn't have been possible."

"But it happened," Inara reminded him.

"It happened," Ip agreed. "But I can't believe it happened by random chance. It seems…calculated. Engineered."

The word hung in the air between them. Someone had _engineered_ the destruction of Shadow?

"Why? Who would want to destroy Shadow?"

Ip shrugged. "No idea. It would be one of the most egregious criminal acts in history, if it's true."

"You're looking for evidence?"

"I'm looking for _scientific_ evidence. That's the only thing I'm qualified to deal with. The political and legal ramifications, I have to leave to others."

. . .

.

.

.

* * *

_This chapter is for those of you who've been wondering what Jayne was keeping secretly in his bunk!_


	13. Chapter 13

Ends with a Horse, Part 6b

_Saffron calls upon her husband. (Which one? you may ask.)_

* * *

It really was the crappiest part of town, surpassing even the portside industrial district for seediness. Saffron wrinkled her nose as she walked confidently through the garbage-strewn streets of the Muirhouse district of New Dunsmuir in her tight clothing and high-heeled boots.

"喂 Wèi, what's a sexy thing like you doing in a place like this?" The cheesy pick-up line was spoken by the sleazy-looking driver of a passing hovercar, all pimped-up with tinted windows and bling. "Want a lift?"

"No, thanks," Saffron answered, with a hint of disdain in her voice. "I already have a _ride_." His charming attempt at persuasion having failed, the rejected driver shouted an insult as he floored the pedal and sped off, but Saffron didn't care. The green door of Fergus, her Beaumonde husband (when it suited her), was already in sight. Fergus wasn't very bright, but he didn't have to be, for what Saffron used him for. Fergus was a well-built physical specimen of a man, and those assets earned him a living as an enforcer for various extra-legal business operations. (_His_ idea of persuasion usually involved brass knuckles or assorted weapons.) He was a man with nothing on his mind but his hair, and after five days on Serenity playing mind-games with a crew of gorram lunatics, Saffron was in the mood for a good, old-fashioned, mindless round of—

Her attention was snagged by the yowling of a pair of feral cats having a fight over the lickings of an empty tin of pickled herring. She missed a step on the buckled pavement and the spiky heel of one of her boots got caught in a sidewalk grate. She was still cursing loudly and hopping gracelessly, trying to regain her balance, when the green door flew open, and a large man stood silhouetted in the frame.

"Thought I heard your lovely chimes, Becky! Where the hell you been this fortnight? Thought you were coming home as soon as you finished th' job."

"How'd _your_ job go, Fergus?" Saffron smiled sweetly, and bent over to straighten her boot, giving Fergus an eyeful of cleavage.

"Oooh, lovely," Fergus crooned, completely distracted by the sight.

"Glad to hear it, luve," Saffron responded, straightening up. "You gonna just stand there, Ferg, or are you gonna let your wife in?"

Fergus backed into the house, kicking aside the accumulation of beer cans that had piled up in Becky's absence. Saffron followed him in and shut the door.

"So, the job went luvely, then," she continued, as she divested herself of her coat and outer layer of clothing. "Splendid. Good pay, I hope?"

"Uh, well…" Fergus always had trouble thinking when his Becky was showin' her lovelies. Truth was, he had trouble thinking at any time, but was a bit too dim to realize that without outside assistance. "Actually, the job went pear-shaped. The target legged it, and the 混蛋 húndàn shot Rory."

"Oh my god, is he dead?" she gasped, feigning more concern than she actually felt.

"No, he ain't dead, Becky. But he got banged up pretty bad. The blighter shot him through the spine an' he can't walk no more." Seeing Becky's horrified expression, he added, "Don't worry, luve, I took him to Doc Graves. Doc fixed him up good, but he's down for the count. Gordon also took a bullet—just a flesh wound in his shoulder—but _he's_ out of business for a while, too. And the worst? We didn't get th' pay-off!" Fergus concluded his tale of woe, all wound up. He was in a grumpier mood than usual, as his brain grappled with the financial implications of having two of his hirelings on the shelf, and no pay to speak of. As the brain cells slowly ticked over and caught up, he added sulkily, "And now we got to pay Doc Graves, too."

"You go to the Feds?"

"Of course not, Becky. What are you, stupid? What kind of story can we tell 'em? 'Got shot in an illegal ambush gone wrong'?"

"No, 傻瓜 shǎguā. You tell them some Browncoats tried to mug him, and when he resisted, they shot him. Let the docs at hospital dig out the bullet, let the Feds run ballistics on it, and let them look for the target _for you._"

"The job was to disable the target, an' acquire 'em for Stoat, not get 'em banged up, like."

"Fergus, sweetie, this is why you need me to think for you." She kissed him and thrust herself up against the solid wall of his chest, causing what little blood he had in his brain to head south rapidly. "Don't matter if you pinch the target yourself, or if the Feds pinch 'em for you. You get 'em banged up in the slammer, then tell Stoat to go collect 'em himself."

"Herself," Fergus corrected, running his large hands over his Becky's luscious curves. It was gettin' hard to think, but he was happy to let Becky do the thinking. Gave him room to focus on other stuff. Thinking was…hard. Gettin' harder by the moment.

"_Her_self. Whatever." Saffron rolled her eyes. She extricated herself from Fergus's groping hands. He began to protest, but when he saw that she was removing more of her clothing, he held his tongue. "And what kind of employer uses a stupid name like 'Stoat' anyway? Couldn't she think of a better alias?"

"Money was good," Fergus shrugged. "Don't matter a turd's worth of difference what the bloody woman calls herself." His nether regions were beginning to take over all his cognitive functions, with his wife wiggling and parading her body before him as she undressed for bed. Bloody hell, that woman just had _no idea_ how fit she was. "But why'd you disappear again, 宝贝 bǎobèi?" He was used to her disappearing act, but it still bugged him.

"Got offered a good gig, luve," Saffron replied. "Big project, client said it had to be done on deadline."

"Coulda come home to sleep," Fergus sulked.

To provoke him to jealousy, she remarked, "Don't get your knickers in a twist. It's not the first time I've _slept_ on the job," in a voice dripping with innuendo. Fergus's best assets were all physical, and when he felt he had something to prove, his performance improved. "And it won't be the last."

"Not many men would put up with your ways, Becky," Fergus growled as he groped her backside. Those knickers she was wearing just drove him mental. "You're lucky I don't mind sharing." He _did_ mind. But it was the price he paid for having such a hot wife. With his other substantial hand he grabbed at her voluminous lace-clad 馒头 mántóu. There was an unexpected crinkling noise as his hand encountered something stiff. "Tell me you got paid," he whispered hoarsely in her ear.

"Oh, I got paid, luve," Saffron said with a silky voice, as she reached suggestively into her bra and pulled out a wad of credit notes. "Overtime."

Fergus jumped her. Or the money. Or both. Whatever.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

喂 Wèi [Hey, Hello]

混蛋 húndàn [bastard]

傻瓜 shǎguā [idiot]

宝贝 bǎobèi [baby]

馒头 mántóu [steamed buns (boobs)]

* * *

_Apologies for the long gap in posting. I've been ill (feeling a bit better now, thanks for asking), and then away on a vacation for some much-needed R-and-R. I'll post the next few chapters sooner._

_Big thanks to TheAmazingDave for consulting on British slang expressions for this chapter. Your help is much appreciated, Dave! Any remaining mistakes are mine._


	14. Chapter 14

Ends with a Horse, Part 6c

_Mal talks out his woman troubles._

* * *

"Evenin', Albatross," he said, nodding absently, then he fell back to his musing as River settled herself down in the co-pilot seat. The Captain stared out into the distant Black as River flipped the test switches and checked the course settings and log. He made no move to cede the helm to her, and River knew he was deep into his own thoughts.

Which weren't hard to divine. He had been spending more time than necessary on the bridge, and River knew he came here to hide. Hide from his crew, hide from his feelings, hide from Inara, and his longing to throw himself into her arms without resolving their problems. Hiding from the uncomfortable conversation he knew they were bound to have.

The Captain stared out at the stars, deep in a brown study. It wasn't long before the confabulation began. He only occasionally spoke aloud, but River knew he'd be talking with Wash in his head—because the bridge was the place he felt closest to Wash, and Wash was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the one he chose to discuss his relationship issues with. Maybe it was because Wash had managed to convince Zoe to marry him, or maybe it was his sense of humor, or that he was a man of similar age—or all these things, that led Mal to be most comfortable talking out his woman troubles with him—or at least, with the idea of him. River settled in to watch the drama, for on these occasions, the Captain's face was like an open book, his thoughts mirrored there for all to see. Didn't take a mind-reading genius to figure out what was going on. If only she'd thought to bring popcorn.

. . .

Mal stared out at the stars, looking for he knew not what.

"Not again, Mal," Wash said.

"Yeah, Wash," Mal answered with a sigh. "Got myself into a pickle here. Don't see a way out with honor."

"Well, there's always ritual suicide," Wash suggested humorously.

Mal gave him a look. "If I tried that, I probably couldn't do that right neither. Can't do nothing right these days, it seems."

"Gotta agree with you there, Mal."

"嘿 Hēi." Mal gave Wash a hurt look. "Listen, Wash, this is serious."

"Okay, serious. One boatload of seriousness coming right up. I can be serious. I've been serious before. Once in flight school, I was earnest, for nearly ten minutes."

"Who, you, Wash? Earnest?"

"Now you're a grave man," River murmured.

"Very funny," Mal commented wryly. "Listen, Wash. Inara accused me of sleepin' with Zoe—"

"You slept with my _wife!?_" Wash exclaimed angrily.

"No. No, of course I—Wash, that's just the point. Inara _thought_ I did, but—my hand to—hell, you know it ain't true."

Wash just looked at him, so he added, "Why would a fine woman like Zoe even _want_ to sleep with the likes of me?"

"No woman in her right mind would."

Mal was uncertain whether to be offended or reassured by Wash's words, but before he could decide which tack to take, Wash spoke up again.

"You never slept with my wife."

"I ain't been sleepin' with your wife, Wash. Inara took up some crazy notion that I did—even got a bee in her bonnet that Zoe's baby isn't yours, but mine. Completely 疯了 fēngle." He shook his head at the craziness of the notion.

River shook her head in synchrony with the Captain, as he mumbled to the vision in his head. And people thought _she_ was the crazy one.

"So she threw me out, flung crockery at me, wouldn't speak to me—"

"Geez Mal, didn't you try to apologize?"

"'Til I was blue in the face, Wash. I apologized immediately. I apologized every damn time I could. I apologized for every damn thing I could think of, and gave a full-spectrum apology for every damn thing I couldn't think of."

"You're learning."

"Not fast enough, apparently. So Inara goes off in a huff, does her thing on Beaumonde while I work the deal with the rotten fruit man and with Holden. We have one helluva day gettin' business done on Beaumonde—even had to defuse a detonator."

"Not the first time you've felt like a bomb was going to blow up in your face," said a deep and measured voice.

"Shepherd Book. Surprised to see you here again so soon. Thought we already had our little palaver." Mal smirked, but it came out as more of a painful grimace. "Usually you only show up when I'm lazing around in bed."

"Despite appearances, I don't actually wait for you to be injured, Captain. It's simply that it's hard to get you to sit still and listen unless you can't move."

Mal took in the admonishment. "You got something to contribute to this conversation, Preacher, I'll listen. So look, I'm defusing the detonator, thinking it could well be my last act in the 'Verse, and I ain't reconciled my differences with Inara. And that seemed all manner of wrong, to leave her thinkin' I'm a cheater when I ain't, to leave her not knowin' that my last thoughts were of her. So when we got through it, I talked to her—just like we hadn't had all that crockery-pitching shouting match before. Asked her like a civilized person to take care of my ship. And she did."

"She did," Wash agreed, patting Serenity's console. "Flew her like a champ."

"But then Saffron turned up, got us all twisted and turned on our heads."

"Like you weren't already twisted," Wash commented.

"Aw, c'mon, Wash! Saffron didn't help none."

"You ought to have explained—" Book began.

"I ain't done yet, Preacher," Mal interrupted. "I went and talked to Inara. She was ready to give me the silent treatment again, but I talked anyways. And I think maybe we got the Saffron 屁話 pìhuà out of our systems."

"Ahh!" Wash exclaimed, giving Mal a knowing look. "Zoe and I always resolved our differences that way. Get together in our bunk and either fight it out or fu—"

"You reconciled," Book interrupted, "at least with respect to the turmoil Saffron caused."

"Mostly," Mal said. "There were still some—." He shifted uncomfortably in the seat and took the next tack. "Anyways, then it was time to face the music about what we done to each other _before _Saffron came aboard. That's when we had it out about the infidelity bit."

"I thought there wasn't any infidelity."

"I didn't! I ain't the cheatin' type. But, you see—Inara just wanted it to be over. Sleep on it, forget about it."

"Forgive and forget, Captain," Book said. "It's the Christian way."

"Well, I ain't a—not no more," Mal retorted. "I can't just forget about it. Weren't just a simple problem. Had consequences. Spawned a whole raft of problems all over. I was thinkin' about it when I shoulda been thinkin' about other things. When I shoulda been keepin' alert for trouble. I was talkin' it out with Zoe, 'stead of watching her back, when those 混蛋 húndàn shot her on Beaumonde, and—"

"She got shot?!" Wash interrupted, suddenly livid. "You let my wife get _shot?"_

"Yes, Wash, to my shame," Mal replied, as Wash sputtered in anger. "I shoulda been watchin', but I was too taken up with my own 废物 fèiwù with Inara."

"My wife got _shot?!"_ Wash repeated. "Mal, she's pregnant! What kind of 乱伦的 疯子 luànlúnde fēngzi would shoot a pregnant woman?!"

"That's exactly what I said, Wash," Mal replied, his own indignation heating up. "Only a 道德沦丧 dàodélúnsàng 无用 wúyòng 非人 fēirén 狗娘养的 gǒuniángyǎngde—"

"Gentlemen. Gentlemen!" Book interjected. The two stopped and stared at him. "Gentlemen, we are all in agreement on that subject."

_Thank goodness for that,_ River thought, rolling her eyes. The Captain's confabulations didn't usually get _this_ complicated.

"Let's examine the point you were about to make, Captain. About forgiveness."

Mal made an effort to control his outrage and continued. "So Inara just wants to forget about it. I can't just forget about it. All kinds of trouble come our way, 'cause I was too busy fretting in my mind to pay attention to what needed doing in the here and now."

"And this is somehow Inara's fault?" Book queried.

"It's her turn to apologize," Mal said sullenly.

"Just drop it, Mal. Kiss and make up," Wash advised. "Just let her be right, you can—"

"I _can't,_ Wash, don't you see?"

"Let go of the wrath. Judge not, that ye be not judged," Book advised.

_What the __地狱__dìyù is it with all this bible-quotin'? It's gettin' to be an epidemic, _Mal thought. "Shepherd, I been judged many a time, and it didn't make no difference whether I judged or judged not aforehand. In the Alliance prison, we were all judged guilty and beat upon, just for bein' soldiers on the losing side. Kinda alters your perspective on the whole judging business."

"Mal, as one married man to another—"

"I ain't married, Wash, case you hadn't noticed," Mal responded with some bitterness, gesturing with his ringless left hand.

"Clearly," Wash replied.

"You asked her," Book stated with certainty, his look brightening.

"Took your advice, Shepherd. I asked her to marry me." Mal looked the Shepherd directly in the eye. He gave it a beat, then informed him, "She didn't say yes."

"But it didn't 'scare her off'," Book returned.

"Didn't," Mal agreed. "But what's come between us since then might." He stopped for a moment, looking thoroughly unhappy. "I just don't want to lose her."

"Look, Mal," Wash offered, after a pause, "have you considered the role hormones play in this?"

"Hormones?"

"Yeah, man. Hormones. Like every month comes a time when you're best off just saying 'yes, dear' no matter what she says. 'You're wrong.' Yes, dear. 'Go jump in a lake.' Yes, dear. 'Go light yourself on fire.' Yes, dear. 'Go to h—'"

"I get it, Wash. Look, it ain't like I never worked closely with women. Hell, half my crew is women. Been so for years. This is beyond monthly cycles, Wash."

"Then maybe it's—"

"Oh, 我的天啊 wǒ de tiān ā. 糟糕 Zāogāo," Mal said softly.

The Captain abruptly got up and left the bridge. River knew from the look on his face that more apologies would be forthcoming, forthwith.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

嘿 Hēi [Hey]

疯了 fēngle [crazy, nuts]

屁話 pìhuà [nonsense]

混蛋 húndàn [bastards]

废物 fèiwù [rubbish]

乱伦的 疯子 luànlúnde fēngzi [depraved lunatic]

道德沦丧 dàodélúnsàng [morally bankrupt]

无用 wúyòng [worthless]

非人 fēirén [subhuman]

狗娘养的 gǒuniángyǎngde [son of a bitch]

地狱 dìyù [hell]

我的天啊 wǒ de tiān ā [dear god]

糟糕 Zāogāo [Oh crap]

* * *

_Well...another look inside the Captain's head. But I think this one kinda moves the plot forward as well...Your feedback is appreciated._


	15. Chapter 15

Ends with a Horse, Part 7a

_A plan_

* * *

"How goes the research, Simon?" Ip frequently stopped by the infirmary to chat, after taking data from the ongoing gravitational anomaly experiment whose main unit was housed in the cargo bay.

"Not bad, Ip. I've been reading up on treatments for PTSD."

"What's the news?"

"There's an experimental treatment involving a stellate ganglion block. It seems to re-set the threshold for triggering fight-or-flight responses. About half of experimental subjects experienced a clinically significant reduction of PTSD symptoms."

"Is this for the Captain?" Ip was well aware of the Captain's PTSD, having been witness to one of Mal's more uncontrolled flashbacks a few months before. They had been flying by the Captain's home planet of Shadow on their way to Beylix, and it seemed that the sudden view of a violent volcanic eruption on Shadow's surface had triggered Mal's fight response.

"Well, yes. The Captain. And River. Zoe, too, on occasion." Simon didn't mention the others. The entire crew had experienced some symptoms of PTSD after the Miranda incident. Jayne had come to him for sleeping pills; Inara had come for counseling. He and Kaylee had taken solace from each other and helped each other through more than a few nightmares. River had reluctantly accepted his course of medication, and Zoe and the Captain, as usual, refused to seek medical help and tried to tough it out. "They all could use some form of PTSD therapy, especially if I can find something that actually works. Now, how about you, Ip?"

Ip actually jumped at Simon's unexpected question, and his startle reflex prompted Simon to follow-up. Simon continued, "So, besides the hypervigilance, are you experiencing any other after-effects from your brush with death on Beaumonde?"

Ip looked away and avoided answering, and Simon, his medical doctor side now fully engaged, immediately followed up. "Have you been having nightmares, Ip?"

"Hmm. A bit," Ip finally answered.

"How frequently?"

"Mmmm…"

"Frequently, then. About once a week? Twice? Every night?" Observing Ip's response, Simon continued, "Nightmares every night are a sign of PTSD, Ip. How long has it been since you have had a full night's uninterrupted sleep?"

Ip gave in. "I slept through the first night after the attack."

"Yes. The crash after the adrenaline surge."

"Exhaustion, I suppose. But since then…well, pretty much every night I wake up at some point gasping for breath."

"Elevated heart-rate?" Simon queried. "Cold sweat?" Ip nodded.

"I keep seeing River kicking the Blue Hand man in the head, breaking his neck." Ip shuddered.

Simon nodded.

"Simon," Ip began hesitantly, "does your…"

Simon waited for Ip to finish formulating his words.

"Does your sister often…well, _kill_ people?"

"Not very often," was his matter-of-fact response. "Why do you ask?"

"_Not very often?_ You mean…she's done it _before?"_

Simon bookmarked the medical journal article he'd been reading and turned to Ip. "Ip, you have to understand." Then he paused, unsure of just how much he actually wanted Ip to understand. Finally, deciding which part of the story he could safely tell, he continued, "Ip, first of all: River is _not_ in the habit of murdering people in their beds. Let me be perfectly clear about that."

"I never thought so," Ip replied defensively. "I certainly don't mean to insinuate that she would."

Ip tried to speak confidently, but Simon could tell from the way the set of his shoulders relaxed slightly, that he had been genuinely disturbed about River's violence. It had taken Simon himself quite a bit of time to reconcile the image of River as an expert fighter, trained to act as a human weapon, with River the brilliantly impish but sweet-tempered child he had known before she went to the Academy. Simon's anger was directed at the Alliance, not his sister. More specifically, at the Alliance-sponsored and Blue Sun-funded Academy that had taken River from him and changed her, abused and tortured her, used her as a test subject in unethical and illegal experiments of extremely dubious scientific legitimacy.

Simon had never actually seen River in action. He had arrived at the Maidenhead Bar to find most of the patrons already taken down or hiding, and the battle with the Reavers had taken place mostly beyond the closed blast doors, while he was barely conscious—barely clinging to life, in fact. After Miranda, his whole perspective on the necessity of violence in certain circumstances had shifted. For instance, he no longer looked on the Captain as a cold-blooded killer. Having seen him operate as a soldier, he now understood that Mal resorted to violence in reaction to violent circumstances, rather than gratuitously. The realization had done much to reconcile him to his vagabond life aboard Serenity, and honestly, it made him much more comfortable with his fellow travelers.

"Ip," Simon told him, "River was abused at that Academy she went to."

"I know that, Simon, you've mentioned—"

"Part of the course of experimentation done on her involved intensive martial arts training, behavioral conditioning, and the embedding of triggers to evoke the fight response. She has extremely good hand-to-hand combat skills as a result, and her use of them is not entirely voluntary. I think it was part of a counter-Reaver experimental program." He refrained from adding, _one in which she was enrolled involuntarily, illegally, unethically_.

"Counter-Reaver program?" Ip was surprised and interested.

"A few months back, before you joined us—" Simon omitted to say precisely when and where. He didn't need to tell Ip that it occurred on Ferdinand Moon, or that it was associated in any way with Miranda. "—Serenity was chased by Reavers. A _lot_ of Reavers." An entire fleet of Reavers, in fact. A terrifying number of hungry, aggressive, cannibal savages.

Ip shuddered, remembering the Reaver ship that chased Serenity around Shadow. Those Reavers hadn't managed to catch them, but the feeling of being stalked by a predator was terrifying. "Was it near Shadow?" he asked. "Did they board?"

Simon shook his head. "We were chased through space on our way to…well, we were headed toward a remote moon. The ship's controls were disabled, apparently by an electromagnetic pulse, and Wash—Zoe's husband—had to glide us in. A whole fleet of Reaver ships were after us, and one in particular was hot on our tail. Kaylee managed to get the back-up controls on line just in time for Wash to pull us out of a death-spiral. He was able to make an emergency landing, and we all survived. Then he was pierced through the heart by a Reaver harpoon."

Ip was shocked.

"We took cover in a building on the moon's surface."

"Why did you leave the ship? Wouldn't it be safer to stay aboard?"

_Because we needed to send the Miranda broadwave before the Reavers or the Alliance stopped us. _"Because the Reavers were right behind us," he hedged, hoping Ip would overlook the illogic of his reason.

"They came after you on the ground?"

Simon nodded, masking his relief that Ip had not questioned his explanation. "Zoe and the Captain chose a place to make our stand, a bottleneck point with some blast doors for protection."

"You fought too?"

"Ip, it was a choice between give up and die, or fight and die. Of course I fought."

"How did you survive?"

"We almost didn't." Simon still had occasional nightmares about that battle. They _all_ had a bit of post-traumatic stress over that incident. "Wash was already dead, of course. Zoe received the first wound; a blade slashed her trapezius and paraspinal muscles. I applied a field suture and bandage, and she was able to keep fighting for a time. Jayne had a shoulder wound, his deltoid, not too serious. Kaylee was shot with a poison dart, and luckily I had the antidote to neutralize the poison. Inara, fortunately, had only minor abrasions—"

"_Inara_ fought as well?" Ip was surprised.

"Yes. She saved Zoe's life. Shot the Reaver that was trying to—"

"What about the Captain?"

"He received a number of injuries. Broken tooth, corneal hemorrhage, and a sword thrust through the lateral oblique muscles, fortunately rather superficial. Numerous contusions," Simon replied, hedging around the Captain's exact role in the battle. He had no intention of mentioning the Operative, nor the Alliance soldiers. "He nearly died, in fact, but by that point, I was not in a position to help him."

"What do you mean? Were you injured as well?"

"I was shot. In the stomach. It damaged my spleen as well. I would have died, had River not gone back beyond the blast doors to retrieve my medical bag."

"Wait. She went _out?"_

"It's not as if I could stop her. She informed me that it was her turn to take care of me, retrieved the bag, and shut the blast doors behind her. None of us saw what she did, but when the battle was over, River was the only one left standing in a room full of dead Reavers."

"仁慈的佛 Réncí de Fó," Ip said faintly, slumping down onto one of the infirmary chairs.

For a moment Simon watched, as Ip silently freaked out in his chair. He did not want to see Ip suffer, especially after confirming that Ip had been experiencing preliminary symptoms of PTSD—an acute stress reaction. Casting about for a suitable distraction, Simon redirected the conversation to the first subject that popped into his mind. They were headed toward Bernadette. "So, Ip, are you looking forward to going home?"

"Home?" Ip echoed, trying to shake off his shock and confusion. "Umm, yes. Yes. Very much. My family lives on Bernadette."

"Father and mother?"

"Yes."

"Do you have any siblings?"

"What?" Ip's thoughts were racing, and he tried to focus on what Simon was saying. "Siblings? Yes. I have a sister. Keiko. She lives there. And an aunt."

"What part of Bernadette are you from?"

"Listen, Simon," Ip said suddenly. "I have an idea. I have a friend, Hari Nyiri, from when I worked at Blue Sun Research Division. He's a good friend. Actually, my best friend, before I left Blue Sun. Listen, he works in the Reaver Studies Department."

Simon listened with interest. Ip had mentioned this friend of his before, but at the time Simon had been too appalled at the idea that Blue Sun actually _had_ a department dedicated to researching Reaver biology, technology, and culture to recognize what an opportunity it presented. (Frankly, the whole concept of "Reaver culture" still sounded like an oxymoron to him.) Ip's friend might not know anything about River's Academy, but someone who studied Reavers for Blue Sun might be in a position to have some insight about Blue Sun's goals in supporting the Academy's illegal research program. Anything he could find out about Blue Sun's interest in the counter-Reaver program might help him help River.

"I'd like to set up a meeting between you and Hari," Ip continued. "He'd absolutely jump at the chance to talk to you about that encounter with Reavers that you just told me about. He studies Reaver behavior, and although most of the research he does is classified, he's told me enough for me to get the general gist of it. They can't study live Reavers, because apparently it's not possible to keep Reavers confined. They're violent, and they…uh, they—"

"They'd gnaw their own arms off to escape captivity," Simon filled in. Ip gave him a questioning look. "Or so the Captain says."

The more Simon thought about it, the more eager he became to talk to Ip's Reaver Studies friend. Though he was unlikely to have knowledge of the specific program River had been forced into, still it would be worthwhile to find out what kind of research Blue Sun was interested in regarding Reavers. It might give Simon a clue as to what Blue Sun's angle was on the whole Reaver business. How was Blue Sun linked to the Reaver problem? Why, exactly, did they maintain a Reaver Studies Division? What were the main thrusts of the Reaver research? Were they simply addressing a problem that had cropped up as the megacorporation expanded its reach ever farther into the inhabited 'Verse, or did they have a more vested interest in the Reaver issue? Why did River's Academy even exist? For what purpose? River clearly was capable of battling Reavers, but was that the _raison d'etre_ of the Academy, or was that merely a side effect?

"I'll have to introduce you," Ip was saying, "while we're on Bernadette."

"Do you think he'd want to meet _me?"_ He put no stock at all in Ip's ready answer that _of course_ Hari would want to meet him (presumably because of his scintillating personality and natural charm). He knew well that he tended to put people off at first meeting—he had been told that he struck them as arrogant, cold, uptight, and short-mannered. Even his friends had generally taken a while to warm up to him, and that was only after they had decided that he was not deliberately setting out to make them feel stupid. What might he offer up as bait, to interest such a person as Hari Nyiri?

Reavers, of course. Simon had encountered Reavers, in person, and lived to tell the tale, and that alone should make him a remarkable person in the research scientist's eyes. A Reaver ship pursued them to Whitefall on his and River's very first voyage on Serenity, and only Wash's expert flying and some small miracles in the engine room had enabled them to escape. There was also the Reaver chase as they flew by Shadow, as well as the journey to Miranda and back to Ferdinand Moon through Reaver space.

Then there were the close encounters. The battle on Ferdinand moon, of course. He hadn't been conscious at the end of that, but as a medical doctor, he had specific knowledge of the injuries the Reavers had inflicted on the crew as well as the types of weapons used to inflict them. There was also the Reaver raid on Lilac—he hadn't been in town, but a Reaver vehicle had pursued River and the others back to Serenity, and one Reaver had actually crashed right into Serenity's cargo bay. Mal and Jayne shot him dead the instant he emerged from within the wreckage, but it was Simon who examined the Reaver's body before it was disposed of, and as a physician he had a unique perspective to offer.

Perhaps his most interesting encounter had been with the survivor of the Reaver attack on the settlers' ship that Serenity encountered not long after he and River joined the ship. He had given the young man a complete physical exam, before he began to cut on himself and turn violent, and he had not only his professional assessment to offer, but detailed medical records, including blood tests. Yes, this was the bait he could offer—especially that last bit with the survivor-turned-Reaver—and it was exactly the sort of information that was likely to draw this Hari person out and stimulate a discussion and exchange of ideas on a scientific level. Simon was calculating enough to direct the exchange without being too obvious about it, he was cautious enough not to reveal too much on his end, and he could trust to Ip and his genuine innocence, to encourage Hari to openness. It seemed like a good plan. Time to request the Captain's permission.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

仁慈的佛 Réncí de Fó [Merciful Buddha]

* * *

_Thanks to ViaLethe for a helpful discussion about Simon. Some of it found its way into this chapter._

_To the Guest reviewer who was hoping for longer chapters: My experience is that readers here at fanfiction dot net prefer more frequent updates and shorter chapters. I'm posting this story in approximately 2000-word chapters, every five days. I publish these stories at another site as well, and there I publish longer chapters at less frequent intervals. If you'd like to experience this story in that way here, just watch the chapter headings, and wait until I post all the parts of a chapter (usually 2 or 3) before you read it. For example, Chapters 12, 13, and 14 here all make up Part 6 of the story (about 4000 to 5000 words). A story of this length (about 70,000 words) takes me about a year to write and edit, and I usually don't post until the story is either complete or nearly so. Ends with a Horse is mostly written, although the ending is still in flux and there are several scenes that are still under construction._

_In any case, I always welcome reader feedback. It's the big motivator, and I need all the motivation to write that I can get! :-)_


	16. Chapter 16

Ends with a Horse, Part 7b

_A reconciliation_

* * *

Mal skittered to a halt just outside Inara's shuttle door. In his haste to apologize, he hadn't even made a plan. Should he knock? He reached for the handle, but he had barely touched it when door flew open, propelled by Inara's pull from the other side.

"Mal. I was about to—" she stammered, just as he said, "Inara. I was just, uh—"

They both stumbled to a halt, and gazed at one another for a moment in bashful confusion. "I'm sorry," they both blurted simultaneously.

Mal's lips twitched upward and Inara's eyes lit as both of them recognized the absurdity of the position. But neither one let it sidetrack them from their purpose, and after a mere instant's pause, they continued.

"I'm sorry, Inara," Mal repeated, pulling her into a reassuring hug. "So sorry." The physical contact was as necessary for him as it was reassurance for her—it just felt good to hold her closely and rub his hands over her shoulders and along her spine.

"Mal, I'm so sorry," Inara was murmuring on her part, as she placed sweet and gentle kisses on his cheeks. "So very, very sorry. Mal, I should have—"

"No, no, it's my fault, Inara." He lifted a strand of hair off her face and tucked it tenderly behind her ear. "I ain't been—"

"I didn't—I should have—so sorry—so very sorry, Mal—" Inara breathed between dotting him with more chaste, comforting kisses.

"I love you, darlin'. I will always—"

"亲爱的 Qīn'àide Mal."

For some minutes, they simply embraced, comforting and apologizing to each other. They exchanged sorrys and murmurs and sweet kisses, and held each other like priceless treasure, and for some time neither one attempted to forward the matters that had caused them to seek each other out. They simply comforted each other, enveloped in the warmth of feeling, giving and receiving love. An observer might have found it sickeningly sweet, but they were completely alone.

Finally they yielded from the embrace and looked in each other's faces. "I'm sorry," they both said again, and this time a little laugh escaped from Inara's throat while Mal's lips twitched into a smile. This set off another round of comforting hugs and kisses—briefer this time—then finally they pulled back and gazed into one another's eyes.

"Come in, Mal." Inara tugged gently on his hand, and led him toward the sofa. They sat, retaining hands and facing one another so that their knees brushed, unwilling to relinquish contact.

"Inara," Mal began after a moment, looking down and softly caressing the hand he held, "I'm sorry. I've been such a 混蛋 húndàn. I never noticed, and I shoulda noticed sooner, but I weren't looking. Please—"

"Please, Mal, I'm the one who needs to apologize. I've treated you abominably. I overheard parts of your conversations, and jumped to unjust conclusions. I acted in anger, and I hurt you. It's inexcusable, and I beg you to forgive me."

"Of course," he replied. "Of course I'll forgive you. It's me oughtta be apologizin' at this juncture. It's—"

"I was unreasonable and completely out of control," she confessed. Their knees touched and she felt an involuntary thrill run through her body at the contact.

"You know, I usually like that. Makin' you lose control." He smirked, caught her look, and added, "Okay. I mean, not like _that_, but—you know what I mean—"

"I'm serious, Mal." It was tempting—oh, it was _so_ tempting—to join him in that light-hearted, smutty-joke place, but this was important. This was fundamental to their relationship, and it needed to be addressed, not glossed over. "Mal, I saw you comforting Zoe, touching and kissing her, and I mistook your actions for infidelity. I interpreted everything in the worst possible way, and I over-reacted. I was jealous—crazy jealous. I don't quite know where these feelings are coming from. It's like…crazy extreme moods. They hit me all of a sudden. And I'm afraid. Afraid that something is wrong with me."

This was the closest she had ever come to telling him about her illness, and she really _was_ afraid. Not simply of what the illness might be doing to her, but also that Mal would seize on it, ask more questions, demand the full story…and she just wasn't ready for that. It was too draining.

"Inara—I noticed, and that's exactly why I come here. I think you're—"

"Please. Mal," she silenced him. "There's more. I need to tell you. I was angry, but that's really no excuse. After we had our fight, and I broke up with you—"

"I never considered us broke up, Inara. It was just a fight. We're good now. We're together—"

"I'm sorry, Mal. I need to tell you. I know you didn't accept it, but in my head I broke off our relationship. I was wrong, but I was very angry. And I scheduled a conjugal client on Beaumonde." She met his eyes and waited for his reaction.

It didn't take long. His eyes flashed with betrayal and hurt, followed quickly by anger. He dropped her hand and pulled back. "You lied. You told me your secret business didn't have nothin' to do with clients."

"I didn't lie, Mal. Those appointments were for something else, just like I said."

"You _didn't_ say. You never said what they were for."

"You didn't ask."

"Of course I didn't ask. Last time I asked about those gorram _appointments_, you slapped me and wouldn't speak to me for weeks." _And I'm not askin' now. I'm not stupid enough to want a repeat a' that. Tired of havin' objects thrown at my head. But maybe you should oughtta tell me. Without me havin' to ask._

"I should tell you," Inara replied, taking her cue off his look, as if she'd read his silent message loud and clear. "I owe you an explanation." But she seemed uncertain how to proceed. "Mal, it's complicated—" she began, falling back on her old cop-out. He wouldn't allow that, and interrupted immediately.

"Of course it's complicated! Everything about our relationship is complicated, Inara! But that don't mean we shouldn't talk about it."

She sat next to him, not touching, staring at the floor, unable to look at him. "I broke up with you. I thought you'd betrayed me. I was hurt. I felt so…bleak. Hopeless. Like my future was a dull blank. There was nothing to look forward to anymore." She couldn't bring herself to look at him as she confessed her shame. But without thinking about it, her hand sought his, and she unconsciously began to caress it as she spoke. He did not withdraw it. "So I tried to get over it. Tried to throw myself into my work, to forget. That's why I scheduled the conjugal client."

_How could you, Inara?_ He refrained from saying it out loud. She still wouldn't look at him.

"He wasn't you. I spent the entire appointment comparing him to you…"

_他妈的__Tāmādē__. __他妈的__Tāmādē__, this was where she told him he didn't measure up. That he was no good. Angry mean old man, is what he was._

"…and he didn't measure up. He wasn't you," she finished, meeting his eyes at last.

Mal looked at her in astonishment.

"Being with you has spoiled me. I don't want to sleep with clients anymore. None of them can give me what you give me."

"What _I_ give you?" he said, finding his voice at last. He couldn't imagine what she thought _he_ gave her.

"You give me _everything._ Heart and soul—"

"Inara, this is 该死的 屁話 gāisǐ de pìhuà. I don't got no soul to give. Got used up, years ago. Nothin' left. Hollowed out shell, is all—"

"Nonsense, Mal." They were precariously perched, ready to slide down a slope of maudlin sentimentality or revert to childish bickering. Inara grasped at her self-control, whatever shreds of it she had left, and brought the conversation back to the essential point. "I'm sorry, Mal. So sorry. I thought you'd betrayed me, and so…I betrayed _you_."

Mal sat silent for a long moment. Inara couldn't read his expression at all. At last he said, "Tit for tat."

"Yes," she breathed. It was so petty of her. She was ashamed of herself. She should have known better. She did know better, but she let her passions rule her. _Engage your passions in what you do, but do not let them govern you._ No control. Had she never trained to be a Companion? She'd forgotten the first lesson. _Control is the first lesson, and the last._

The silence stretched between them. Mal looked at his hands, folded in his lap. She couldn't read his face at all. At last he raised his eyes to hers. "Inara, that's…" he hesitated, searched for the right words, found them, and continued in a surprisingly grown-up way, "well, it's immature, is what it is."

"Yes," she acknowledged, hanging her head.

"Thought I had the monopoly on immaturity in this relationship," he said, with a ghost of a smile on his face.

"Aren't you mad?" she asked in astonishment, meeting his eyes.

He fell back against the cushions, exhaled and turned his face away from her. "Of course I'm mad," he answered, running his hands through his hair. "But I don't got a leg to stand on. After all, I done the same to you."

_What?_ Her eyes involuntarily darted to his face, and she noted how his body language spoke of guilt. She didn't understand. He and Zoe hadn't—had they?

He raised his eyes at last, and met her gaze. "Thought you didn't love me, slept with somebody else."

She couldn't help her reaction. "But you said—"

"Not Zoe. Ye gods, woman! Can't you get that notion out of your head?" He spoke testily, but the undercurrent of his thoughts was too dark to hold to that tack. _Ain't as if Zoe would ever take to bed with the likes of me, anyhow. Knows me too well. _ "No, I meant your friend Nandi. Thought you didn't love me, that you and I could never…" he trailed off with a sigh, ran his fingers through his hair again, and finally summoned the courage to meet her eyes. "Anyways, I slept with someone else, when it was you I loved. Shouldn't have done that. 'S just wrong."

"That's different, Mal. We weren't even together then."

"Yes, we were," he insisted. "We just wouldn't admit it. Not to each other, not even to ourselves. Inara, we done betrayed each other before."

"Petty." She was speaking of her own behavior.

"Immature," he responded, speaking of himself now.

Inara could see the barest ghost of humor in the situation. "I suppose…you're not alone. It seems…Mal, I'm just as immature as you are when it comes to relationships."

"Inara, that's a load of 废物 fèiwù," he countered assertively. "You're professionally trained, uh—" he screeched to a halt, suddenly unsure how to say what he meant without completely screwing up. Hell, _he_ wasn't even sure what he meant.

"Mal, I'm…not…" Inara stopped. She didn't want to talk about her Companion training—it invariably upset him. Besides, she had never admitted such a thing to anybody. "Mal, I'm not on any kind of solid ground here," she continued bravely. "I'm trained to connect with people transiently. When it comes to a sustained emotional relationship…I'm…well, I'm just as inexperienced and immature as you."

"天啊 Tiān ā," Mal said with a sigh and a small smile, "no wonder we been squabbling like this. We're both no better 'n grade schoolers in a sandbox."

Inara smiled in return. "Immature."

"Come." He patted the sofa next to him, and she slid over, closer to him. He reached over and gathered her in, pressing her close to his side. "You know, our timing is just terrible."

"How do you mean?" She looked up at him in concern.

"Seems I decided to trust you completely, right around the time you decided not to trust me at all."

"I trust you now."

"Well, there ain't but one way forward that I can see," he declared. Humor glinted in his eye. "Inara, you made your cake, and now you must lie in it."

"Mal, that doesn't make any sense."

"Makes more sense than, 'You can't have your bed, and eat it too.'"

Her mouth twitched upwards. 哎呀 Āiyā, he was making her laugh. "You are insane!"

"So I'm told," he answered smugly, as if she'd just delivered an expected compliment.

"That just takes the cake."

. . .

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glossary

亲爱的 Qīn'àide [dear, darling]

混蛋 húndàn [bastard]

_他妈的__Tāmādē__[Shit]_

该死的 屁話 gāisǐ de pìhuà [damned nonsense, bullshit]

废物 fèiwù [rubbish]

天啊 Tiān ā [God]

哎呀 Āiyā [Damn it]

* * *

_Been waiting for that for a long time. Hope you enjoyed it. There's more in the next chapter._


	17. Chapter 17

Ends with a Horse, Part 8a

_The perils of comparing your significant other to a cow._

* * *

The humor had broken the tension, and they found they were able to talk. Inara also found comfort in the ritual of preparing tea, and while she gathered the teacups and heated the water, they spoke about Zoe's knee operation. She was staying in the passenger dorm while she was on crutches and couldn't manage the ladder in her bunk. In a few days, she'd begin physical therapy to regain strength and range of motion, and Simon had already spoken to Inara about using her shuttle's bathtub as a therapy pool.

"It's not really big enough to call it a 'therapy pool'," Inara said.

"Ain't it?" he asked. "What kind of tub is it, anyhow?"

"You've never seen it?"

"Never had occasion to."

"We'll have to remedy that some time."

Mal watched as Inara fussed over the tea things. She was using the tea set he had bought for her on Bandiagara. It seemed to be intact. He felt a kind of relief, for he'd worried that she'd smashed it, what with all the bits of things she had flung at his head the past couple of weeks. It was an odd sentiment, but he viewed that tea set as symbolic—as if it were his wedding gift to his intended bride or something like that, because it was the first thing he had bought for her after the Bandiagarans had presumed the two of them to be married.

He gave himself a stern shake. Couldn't let himself get carried away by sentimentality. There was a reason he'd come to Inara's shuttle. He still had his own confession to make, and she wasn't gonna like it.

He waited until Inara was finished with the tea-making, and sat at the opposite end of the sofa holding her tea cup. Mal took a sip of the scalding hot beverage.

"You—you made it Bandiagara-style," he blathered in surprise.

"Yes," she answered.

For some reason, this threw him completely. Everything he was going to say flew out of his head, along with the remnants of resentment and anger. Memories of their beautiful idyll on Bandiagara flooded his mind. "Inara," he said, and his voice was full of emotion, "it's my turn. I have a confession to make, and I owe you an apology.

"Inara, I been irresponsible. It weren't intentional, but I wasn't acting like a responsible man ought, and it might have consequences for you. You need to know."

She gave him her full attention. "What is it, Mal?"

"Inara, when we…uh…" He really needed to get the better of this awkwardness. They were lovers, and there were few things they hadn't shared physically. It was ridiculous that he couldn't speak of this without difficulty. _Just start at the beginning and tell it the way it is. _He swallowed a gulp of scalding hot tea and blurted, "The first time we made love, I didn't use protection."

Inara repressed the urge to laugh. It would be unkind. Months had passed since their first time, and she most certainly would have known by now, had there been consequences of the kind he was alluding to. The first time they made love, _neither_ of them had expected it. It would have surprised her if he _had_ been prepared.

It was the last thing Inara had expected, that night. She had returned from her doctors' appointments in the city, to find the ship had been boarded by thugs, and Simon, Kaylee, and River had dealt with them while the others were out. They sailed out into the Black, and when she finally felt recovered enough to leave her shuttle, she found Mal hanging around in the cargo bay, lurking near her door. That was not so unusual: for more than two years he'd been making excuses to come talk to her. What was unexpected was his sudden declaration of love and his offer of devotion. It led to their first kiss, which rapidly led to the rest. There was nothing hasty about it—their courtship dance of more than two years' duration meant that they weren't exactly strangers to each other. Still, she believed that Mal had not come out there that evening expecting to end up in her bed, and if he hadn't been prepared, she could readily forgive that. She hadn't expected it either. But she _had_ been prepared. A Companion was _always_ prepared.

"I didn't expect—I never expected—Inara, I didn't come out there with no presumption I'd end the night in your arms. I wasn't prepared, and I'm sorry. You're probably thinkin' I'm some uncivilized 混蛋 húndàn was brought up in a barn. I—"

"Mal, please, this is unnecessary. Don't beat yourself up over this."

He wasn't finished. "I got the inoculation next morning. I been using it ever since. I want you to know that. I would never just presume that you'd want—" he paused and swallowed, and she could see how difficult this was for him "—that you'd be willing to have a child by me."

"Mal, I know. I never thought you'd…Mal, it's alright. I know you're not that kind of man."

"Yes, I am. I'm a right 王八蛋 wángbādàn, all hollowed out and empty, don't got nothin' to offer." He was staring off into the floor. "I'm an angry, mean old—"

"Mal." She reached over and touched his arm. "You're not a mean old man. You're…exasperating, sometimes. But also thoughtful and considerate. You're impetuous and impulsive, Mal, but not irresponsible. You're—"

"Inara," he interrupted, with a bleak look. "I never told you. Never got a chance to tell you. I was on my way to tell you when we started fightin'. Simon told me two weeks gone—the inoculation's no good. Expired months ago. Might as well have been injecting saline for all the effectiveness left in it. I'm sorry. I shoulda told you anyway, even when you were throwin' things at me. Now go ahead and tell me what a 混蛋 húndàn I am. Tell me that I ain't a gentleman."

"I won't tell you that, Mal, because it's not true. I'm sorry to hear about the ineffective contraceptives, but there's little to worry about there. Even if yours were no good, mine are working fine, and there's no reason to fear unforeseen consequences.

"I'm sorry, Inara," he said, adding, without conscious thought, the kind of look Zoe would have interpreted easily. _Can you forgive me?_

"Of course I can forgive you, Mal. There's nothing to forgive." Inara reached over and held his hand, giving it a squeeze. They sat in silence for a time.

"Inara?"

"Yes, Mal?"

"You sure about those contraceptives of yours?"

"Yes."

"Hundred percent?"

"Mal, why are you still worried?"

"Well, it's just…um…well, you've been moody."

"Moody? Just what do you mean?"

"Inara, you been cold-shoulderin' me, yellin' at me, and pitchin' crockery at my head. I think that counts as moody."

"That doesn't mean anything."

"Also, your skin and hair—they're different. Your hair's thick and full, and your skin has a kinda quality to it that's just—"

"Mal, those are just old wives' tales." She tried not to show how much his words distressed her. Whatever he'd noticed was not what he thought, and she didn't want him to jump to conclusions and be disappointed. It wasn't the possibility of pregnancy that concerned her—she wasn't even sure she _could_ become pregnant. The things he had pointed out were also all signs of inadequate use of medication and irregular attention to therapy—and perhaps also that her illness was entering an escalated phase. She needed to tell him about it, but now was not the right time to introduce the added stress of her illness to their relationship. It was still so fragile, and they had barely achieved a kind of precarious equilibrium after all they'd gone through.

"No," Mal countered firmly, "they're not just old wives' tales. There's a sound basis for every one of 'em. Inara, I think you're forgetting that I grew up on a ranch, and I been trained to notice the signs of hormonal changes in females. Estrogen surges cause restless, moody behavior—you know, wandering about and mooing and the like. Used to ride out to pasture morning and evening to observe the cows and heifers, to watch for standing and mounting behaviors, to know if it was time to turn the bull loose to service the herd. And then we had ta watch for the signs that the breeding had took, so as to cull the open cows from the herd. So what I been seeing here is—"

"Mal. Did you just seriously compare me to a cow in heat?"

"No, not a cow in heat. What I was just sayin', about the open cows—"

"You compared me to a pregnant cow."

"Umm. Uh…yeah, guess I did." Mal grinned sheepishly at her.

"Do you really think you ought to be comparing your girlfriend to a _cow?"_

"Uh. Well. Umm. I didn't mean—" To his great relief, Inara burst into great, hooting peals of laughter, and after a moment he joined in, as the absurdity of his comparison finally struck him.

"Oh, 诙谐 的佛 huīxié de Fó." Finally she wiped her streaming eyes and said, "So you think I've been acting like a pregnant cow?"

"Yeah. I mean, um, no! I mean—" He stopped, unable to find a way out of the hole he was digging. "Inara, will you just humor me and get Simon to run a test? Won't take but a few minutes."

"No, not Simon," she said too quickly. He gave her a sharp look, and she recollected herself. "No, it's—Mal, that's too close to home. Look, I already have a doctor's appointment scheduled on Bernadette in only a few days. I'll just have them run a test while I'm there."

"A doctor's appointment?" he asked, concerned. "Why? Ain't you been feelin' well?"

"No," she lied. "It's a routine check-up. The Guild provides free medical care to all Registered Companions, Mal. It's no big deal. I can just ask them to check."

"Okay. I guess it can wait a few. But please," and he looked at her with an appeal in his deep blue eyes, "get it checked out. I wanna know if I'm responsible for all your moody behavior."

"I'm not moody!" she insisted huffily.

"See?" he teased. "What I was sayin'."

"Mal, you 蠢蛋 chǔn dàn—" she began, the affectionate insult coming readily to her lips.

"Hey, 小蛋 xiǎodàn," he said softly to Inara's stomach, a goofy smile on his face. "It's your 爸爸 bàba. Just wanna say—"

"Oh, cut that out, Mal." She batted affectionately at his ears and smiled at him, immensely relieved that he was taking a humorous approach to the situation, and seriously hoping that he did not really expect to be proven correct in his surmises.

. . .

"That girl is a wonder." 代號 Dài Hào had followed up on the mercenary agent's performance, and was quite impressed with it.

"Did she succeed, then?"

"On all points."

"I don't know about that. They weren't neutralized, and the subject was not recovered."

_Oh ye of little faith. _ 代號 Dài Hào kept his expression blank, almost inhuman. It was a skill that came easily to a trained agent. He couldn't help feeling that this was a conversation that should have taken place face to face, instead of over an encrypted wave. But it would have endangered the operation if he had traveled to Bernadette to oversee its conclusion himself. Besides, he needed to maintain his cover on Beaumonde, and it was not as if this retrieval operation were the _only_ one he was involved in. "Remember, the plan has multiple facets. It wasn't necessary to kill them for the plan to be successful. She reported that she was able to install the software and enable the special features. If the ship comes into Core airspace within range of one of our flight manipulators, we'll be able to guide it to ground in one of our secure facilities. If the subject is indeed aboard, we will recover her, and her fellow travelers can be de-briefed and quietly disposed of."

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glossary

混蛋 húndàn [bastard]

王八蛋 wángbādàn [son of a bitch]

诙谐 的佛 huīxié de Fó [jocular, zany Buddha]

蠢蛋 chǔn dàn [fool, lit. "sluggish egg"]

小蛋 xiǎodàn [little egg]

爸爸 bàba [daddy]

代號 Dài Hào [Code Name]

* * *

_Your thoughts and comments...on Mal, Inara, cows, or other matters, most welcome._


	18. Chapter 18

Ends with a Horse, Part 8b

_Backstories. Be warned: there is sleeping in this chapter._

* * *

Inara lay awake that night, watching Mal sleep next to her. He always looked so young and innocent when he was sleeping, when the burdens were lifted from his shoulders and the care-worn lines on his face relaxed.

"_No better than grade schoolers in a sandbox,"_ Mal had said. It was true. Because really—

Experience with men? Experience with clients? Plenty. Experience with a long-term, committed, meaningful relationship? None. None whatsoever. This was a connection meant to last, and she found she had no relevant experience at all to draw from. Just a long string of transient and shallow connections with clients. Yes, from time to time she'd contracted with a client for more than a day. Extended weekends were not uncommon. Repeat engagements with regular clients were generally to be preferred to the tedious and careful screening that went into accepting new clients. But only rarely had she contracted with a client for more than a week at a time.

She and Mal had been together for months now, fits and starts notwithstanding, and they had known each other for three years. If she were to be perfectly honest about it, they had been _together_ (minus only the physical connection) for most of those three years. She wanted so much to do this right, and yet she knew she had already done much of it wrong. She had already screwed up, and only hoped that her mistakes were not irredeemable. Because she was improvising here, and that was kind of scary, to tell the truth.

The Art of Companioning revolved so much around control—controlling oneself, and thereby gaining more control of a situation generally. Companions learned that there were always factors that were beyond one's control, but it was possible to limit the number and scope of those factors through one's own actions and reactions, thereby assuring a positive outcome for any given human encounter. But in her relationship with Mal, things always had a way of jumping beyond control and going to unexpected places. It was thrilling, but also alarming—the best and most frightening relationship of her life. And that was before they added sexual intimacy to the mix.

"No…no…" Mal muttered in his sleep. He was no longer sleeping serenely. "Have to get out…" He was twisting around in the sheets, and even though most of what he said was indistinguishable, enough words were clear for her to recognize it as one of his Serenity Valley nightmares.

"Ssshhh, Mal, it's okay," she soothed, brushing her hands softly through his hair and against his cheek. "I'm here. It's alright."

"'Nara?" he said woozily. "What're you—" _doing here on the battlefield?_ He trailed off as he surfaced from the nightmare, and began to understand he wasn't at Serenity Valley, but in her bed, in the shuttle, on the ship.

"It's okay, Mal. Go back to sleep." She kept contact, her hands gentle and soothing, and, as he settled deeper into a more restful slumber, she kissed him. He didn't wake, but smiled in his sleep, a sweet smile that Inara never got to see when he was awake. He rolled over and breathed easier, and as Inara snuggled into his side, she breathed easier, too. Soon she was fast asleep.

. . .

Mal awoke early, as usual, but remained motionless and thoughtful. Inara was still sleeping, peaceful and lovely perfection to look at. In his months with her, he had discovered that as soon as he began stirring, Inara would respond, rousing herself, ready to do…anything. Companion training, he supposed. Ready to meet the client's needs. Ugh, didn't want to think about _that_. But if he was really quiet and still, he could watch her sleep, and he found it very peaceful and calming. Serenity in the early morning.

Okay, so maybe bringing up the cows wasn't such a smooth move. But it was, truly, his window to understanding females, and it applied. Hormonal swings might explain everything, and it was much easier to stomach that explanation than to believe that Inara was mean or cruel or just didn't care. He had feelings, too, and even when she was angry she must know that. It had to be hormones.

How had it taken him so long to figure that out? Musta been that he weren't really looking, weren't really listening. He kept asking her what _he'd_ done, what was wrong with _him._ He coulda asked her what was wrong with _her_. Coulda asked her why _she_ was upset, coulda looked beyond reasons related to _himself. _Coulda looked past the surface. But he didn't. He wasn't trying to see things from her perspective. _So sorry again, Inara._

Even last night's happy mood just confirmed his suspicions. She was pregnant. He had gotten her pregnant. Wasn't anything else he knew about could cause mood swings like this, and despite her laughing at him for comparing her to a cow, the truth was that it was his knowledge of cattle breeding that gave him insight into the matter. Sure didn't have much first-hand experience with pregnant womenfolk, excepting Zoe these last few months. And well, Kaylee, too, he supposed. Both of them had moments of bein' all unreasonable and upset. So it stood to reason. He had gotten Inara pregnant.

The thought was scary and anxiety-provoking. He couldn't imagine himself being a particularly good father. He was dead certain that he would screw it up, and do it all wrong. But still the notion of becoming a father made him feel inordinately pleased, at a very profound and basic level. Some deep and primal part of him felt like crowin' like a rooster.

This whole relationship business was a confounding one, beset with pitfalls. It was why he'd avoided intimacy, made it his policy. _'No shipboard relationships.' _Relationships complicated things, and much as he hated to say it, he really _wasn't_ very experienced.

With human intimate relationships, anyhow. He understood bovine intimate relationships rather well. He was a ranch kid, and as such, the facts of animal breeding were part of his daily life from a very early age. He wasn't ignorant of the mechanics of reproduction. But unlike some of his peers who put their knowledge into practice, Mal was held off from a premature start due to a combination of strict religious training and lack of opportunity. His mother, though not a Shadow native, had found the strict doctrine of Shepherd MacLeod and the Northside United Family Christian Church very congenial to her tastes—much to the dismay of her relatives back on Londinium, who thought she'd gone off the deep end with the puritan religion. Like many converts, she took her convictions a mite more seriously than those who were born to the faith, and imparted her strict beliefs to her only son. Mother and son attended church regularly, and although Jeannie Reynolds didn't insist that everyone conform to her religious beliefs, those who didn't pay similar reverence to their respective deities and who failed to uphold certain standards of morality were not welcome on her ranch.

Mal also suspected that his ma had somewhat to do with the lack of opportunity. He wasn't watched like a hawk, but the rural community was tight-knit. There were adults enough around, and all of them had known him his whole life. There was very little he could get away with without word getting back to his ma. The Reynolds Ranch was also like a village apart, somewhat isolated, with only the small hamlet of Tairbeart within easy distance. Although there were girls his age in residence, he'd been raised with them and they felt like family. It took a determined (and much looser) girl at high school to seduce him.

It didn't occur to him at the time that she might not hold to his notions of exclusivity and the holiness of union, so when she tired of him and moved on to her next conquest, he felt betrayed. The idea that he was nothing more than a fleeting recreation to her, that she didn't love him to the last syllable of recorded time (or at least with a mind toward holy wedlock), was bitter medicine for his young self to stomach. He'd nursed his wounded tender heart (and his wounded male pride) in solitude and repented of his sins. He was surrounded by folk whose collective wisdom—and self-interest as well—inclined them to warn Jeannie Reynolds's son and heir of the perils of gold-diggers and entrapment, and he'd fallen into a period of righteous abstinence.

His only serious relationship had occurred in the last year before he left Shadow. He met a girl in Edmonds City, Shadow's principal town, when he went there to sit his exams for the Ag School correspondence courses he was taking. Mindy was bright, sweet, religious, and pretty—a combination that young Mal had found irresistible—and her unfeigned interest in the agricultural sciences made her a highly suitable candidate for the attentions of the sole heir of one of Shadow's most prosperous ranches. His ma approved wholeheartedly, and when he and Mindy began dating seriously, all the older folk nodded knowingly. They expected Mal to marry her within a year or two, to become a father a few years after that, and to follow a well-worn, comfortable trail into middle age.

To tell the truth, so did Mal. Had there been no war, Mal would've expected, at his current ripe old age of thirty-five, to have a happy marriage, a comfortable home, and a passel of young 'uns. He'd have taken on the duty of the day-to-day management of the ranch, freeing up his mother for other enterprises and giving her an occasional day of leisure after a lifetime of toil.

But that never happened. The war intervened when he'd been with Mindy for a little less than a year. Rather than diving into a hasty marriage before he left to take up his enlistment, they agreed to wait for each other. He'd stayed faithful to her throughout the war, and as he grew older and more experienced in the ways of the 'Verse, he had determined to waste no more time and marry Mindy at the first opportunity.

It never came. Home leave never came his way, the war reached its crushing and soul-blighting culmination, and Shadow was destroyed. An Alliance bombing raid unaccountably triggered a terraforming disaster of apocalyptic proportions, rapidly overwhelming the environment and killing all the life-forms—plants, animals, and people. His ma, his family and friends, and Mindy as well, were all presumed dead, like Shadow itself. The war ended, and Mal was a so-called "white widower"—widowed before ever he had a chance to be married.

The war broke him. Left him shattered, hollowed out. He felt he had nothing to offer anyone, and if Zoe hadn't stuck to him out of some confounded sense of loyalty, most like he would've sunk to the bottom in short order, and wound up blowin' his brains out or drinking himself to death in some filthy alley. But responsibility toward Zoe kept him from falling into that death spiral—he couldn't let _her_ down, so he had to pick himself up and keep going. A rare bit of luck had led him to his ship Serenity. Before Serenity Valley, he might have called it the Hand of Providence, but he didn't hold with that no more.

He kept flying, but life on the fringes and a shoestring budget left little room for romance. A few days here, a few days there—short, intense encounters with hostile worlds where folk would just as soon shoot at you as give you a job. Damn little time to be developing any kind of meaningful human relationship. Or maybe Wash was dead-on right, when he told Mal he had intimacy issues. His experience had taught him that when you loved and gave your heart, it got betrayed, snatched away, and destroyed.

. . .

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* * *

_Thanks for reading!_


	19. Chapter 19

Ends with a Horse, Part 9a

_High Flight_

* * *

Jayne's jacket pockets were loaded down with 鸡屎 jī shǐ. It weren't pretty, but it was the only way he could get the fouled bedding out of his bunk without gettin' caught. Felt kinda stupid, wearin' his jacket aboard ship, 'cause it weren't in no way cold enough to be totin' a jacket around, but the thing had lots of pockets, and that meant fewer trips to the septic vac, and that meant less chance of someone catchin' him in the act.

He walked nonchalantly down the stairs to the cargo bay. Just headin' to the weight bench for a workout, is what he was doin'. Yep, just headin' to the—

"Jayne."

"Wha—hey, Cap," he said, resisting the automatic urge to shove his hands into his pockets—'cause the pockets were full of—

"Come on over here, give me a hand shifting this crate."

Why the 地狱 dìyù'd Mal need help shiftin' those crates _now?_ Tryin' not to act ass-picious, he sauntered over, slow but not too slow.

"Shake a leg, Jayne. I ain't got all day. Put your shoulder to it."

Jayne put his shoulder to one side of the crate, and on Mal's signal, the two men shoved the heavy object into position. Jayne straightened up. There was no emptying his pockets into the septic vac tank with the Captain standin' there, so he said, "Well, then, I'll just be—"

"Ain't done yet, Jayne. Gotta shift the whole line of crates."

"What for?"

Mal glared at him. Jayne glared right back. "'Cause I said so, that's why." Captain signaled, and they pushed the next crate to its new place. "Whole line's gotta be shifted," Mal explained, relenting somewhat now that he had Jayne's compliance. "Can't strap 'em down properly over there—straps don't reach the grommets."

Now that Jayne looked, he saw the strapping on the whole line of crates was strained to its limit. Mal unhooked the strap of the next crate and made ready to shove. _Gorrammit_, Jayne thought, _whole line needs shiftin'._

. . .

Jayne was never one to complain about physical labor, but the gorram jacket was _hot._ Sweat was pourin' offa him in buckets.

"Why don't you take that gorram thing off?" Mal asked, as Jayne wiped his brow once more. He had removed his own button-down, and was sweatin' in just his brown t-shirt.

"Uh, 'cause I'm cold, Cap."

Mal gave him a look like he was _insane—_and weren't that rich, comin' from _him—_then gave a little shrug, as if to say, _'whatever suits you, Jayne,'_ then set to shovin' the next crate in line.

. . .

Finally, finally, all the crates was moved to their new places, all the straps was re-strapped and tightened. Now, if only Mal would _go away_, he could mosey on over to the septic vac tank, and empty the 鸡屎 jī shǐ outta all his gorram pockets.

The Captain picked up his discarded shirt and slung it over his shoulder. Jayne started walkin' over towards the—nope, don't even look at the septic vac—the weight bench. Yeah, weight bench. He wiped his forehead again. Sweatin' like a pig, he was. Gorram jacket.

"Where you goin', Jayne?"

"Thought I'd lift some," Jayne answered, pointing towards the weight bench. "Get me a good workout."

Again with the look like he was insane. "I don't pay you to run a fitness center," the Captain said. "Need your help upstairs. Topside airlock needs maintenance. Need you to climb the ladder."

"Aww, hell, Mal, can't Zoe—"

"Zoe's still on crutches, jackass. She can't go climbing no ladder 'til her knee heals. 'Fraid it's you, Jayne." Captain sauntered off and headed up the stairs. Maybe he could just—

"What're you standin' there for, Jayne? C'mon, let's hoof it."

_Oh __狗屎 __gǒushǐ__,_ Jayne thought, as the smell of warm 鸡屎 jī shǐ wafted up through the neckline of his jacket. _狗屎 __G__ǒushǐ__, __牛屎 __niú shǐ, and __鸡__屎 __jī__shǐ._

. . .

"River, we're bound for Bernadette," Mal stated as he entered the bridge.

River merely looked at him and waited for him to complete his thought.

"Bernadette's in the Core," Mal continued, as he seated himself in the pilot's chair and automatically began running down the checklists that every pilot went through at the change of watch.

_Thank you, Captain Obvious. _River checked the urge to roll her eyes. She knew that all these obvious statements were leading up to the crux of the matter. She just wished he'd get to it without all the tedious preliminaries.

"Core means controlled space flight," Mal added, looking at River as if he knew just what was going through her mind. "Now, we ain't hardly done any controlled flight since you started piloting, just a landing here and there. But this is different. Soon as we enter the 白虎 Báihǔ System, everything's controlled airspace. Can't go nowhere without a filed flight plan. When we get in the vicinity of Santo, I'll contact Space Traffic Control and activate our flight plan. From then on, we'll be flyin' as directed by the flight controllers, on standard flyways, right through to the approach to Bernadette. We get into the neighborhood of that planet, they'll hand off to Bernadette Approach, and when we go atmospheric, we have to hand over control of the helm to Shinjuku Tower."

River nodded, to show that she was still listening, but she'd shifted her gaze to the field of stars laid out before them in the Black sky.

"Bernadette's atmo is so congested with traffic that independent flyin' ain't permitted. Every vehicle is remote-flown by the air traffic controllers."

"You don't like that."

"Damn right I don't, Albatross. We're flyin' right into the Core, to Bernadette of all places. We just come from Beaumonde, where the gorram Blue Hands come after us, and your face and your brother's re-appeared on the bulletin. Blue Sun Research Division is headquartered on Bernadette."

"Too much Blue."

Mal agreed with a nod. "And soon as we get there, I won't have a dime's worth of a say about how to fly my own gorram ship. Gotta let some 混蛋 húndàn in a tower 操 cāo my ship however they gorram please." He deliberately bent his pronunciation of the word "操 cāo" so that it sounded like "肏 cào."

"That makes you uneasy."

"Well, yeah. I think that's enough to justify a bit of uneasiness."

"Dangerous to let them fly. Don't have to."

"Yes, we do. It's regulation. And it's dangerous to fly independent in Bernadette's atmo—too much traffic—likelihood of a collision is pretty high. Still don't like it. Gotta trust the Space Traffic Controller. Don't like trustin' people what I can't look 'em in the eye."

"What if they don't—"

"If they don't fly right? Guess there's always manual override. Can activate it in an emergency. But that would trigger an investigation from Space Traffic Control. Another headache I don't need."

River turned away from the starry view, and fixed her penetrating look on the Captain. "We shouldn't go."

"We should. We got legitimate business there." He met River's stare with his best captain-y look, held it for a moment, then broke under River's uncanny scrutiny. "Well, okay, we also got illegitimate business there, too, but we're solid." Thank goodness for the legal cover cargo. Papers and everything on it. Wouldn't do for an independent owner-operated transport ship to fly into a busy company-dominated port city like Shinjuku with an empty hold and a lame story about hoping to pick up a cargo there. Such-like transactions didn't raise an eyebrow out on the Rim, but would be a red flag to Port Authority in the Core.

"It ain't no joke, flyin' into controlled airspace," Mal continued his captain-y lecture. "The Space Traffic Controllers ain't the Law, and they don't necessarily share info with the Law, but the fact is they got an ID on us, the whole time we're in the 白虎 Báihǔ System." He absently scanned the ship's log, approved the course settings, and accepted River's transfer of the helm to his flight desk.

"Albatross, I'll let you fly Serenity, but only as a 'trainee.' Either me or Zoe gotta be sittin' up here, to stay within the letter of the law, since we're licensed pilots and you ain't. I don't want to call no unnecessary attention to our ship, so we just go easy and follow the rules."

"There are lots of rules."

"More 'n you can shake a stick at, Albatross."

"Makes it a little more difficult to _slip the surly bonds of earth."_

Mal smiled, releasing a little puff of air through his nose in a mild snort. Albatross knew how to make him laugh. "Yeah. I've read that poem, too. And I'm here to tell you that the flight regulations in the Core require that you double-check that all them surly bonds been completely and properly slipped before you take to the air."

"_Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth—"_ River intoned.

Mal grabbed the electronic paper with the current STC "Notices to Space Travelers" printed on it. "Sunward climbs must not exceed maximum climb rate permitted for spacecraft utility class rating," he declaimed, pretending to quote from the regulations.

"—_Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things  
__You have not dreamed of—"_

"Oh, no you ain't, Albatross. Not in front of no Core Space Traffic Controllers you ain't done them hundred things."

"—_wheeled, and soared, and swung  
__High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there—"_

"Like that's a big deal in a VTOL craft. Tell me something special you can do, Albatross."

"—_I've chased the shouting wind along—"_

"Shoulda checked the weather report. Them shoutin' winds can do a number on the primary buffer panel, you ain't careful."

"—_and flung  
__My eager craft through footless halls of air.  
__Up, up the long delirious, burning blue—"_

"Black. It's called _The Black_. How long ago was this damn poem written, anyhow?"

"—_I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,  
__Where never lark, nor even eagle flew—"_

"You ever fly through a flock a' birds, Albatross, you gotta check the thrusters for damage. Believe me, I know. I've had worse birds than eagles go through my engine."

River gave him a queer look, as Mal's face darkened with the memory of Niska's 'good right hand' Crow. Then she continued.

"_And while, with silent lifting mind I've trod  
__The high untrespassed sanctity of space—"_

They both took a deep breath, in concert. Flying through space brought a sense of ease and freedom; they both felt it.

"—_Put out my hand, and touched the face of God."_

"Pilots are advised that opening the airlock in order to touch the face of God may result in sudden decompression," Mal mock-quoted. "Protective equipment is mandatory for all high-atmospheric and super-atmospheric extra-vehicular activity, including god-touching."

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

鸡屎 jī shǐ [chicken crap]

地狱 dìyù [hell]

鸡屎 jī shǐ [chicken crap]

流氓 liúmáng [jerk, asshole]

狗屎 Gǒushǐ [crap (dog crap)]

牛屎 niú shǐ [crap (cow poop)]

鸡屎 jī shǐ [chicken crap]

白虎 Báihǔ [White Tiger, another name for the White Sun]

混蛋 húndàn [bastard]

操 cāo [control or steer]

肏cào [f-k]

* * *

_Author notes: This chapter quotes very extensively from the poem "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, and makes liberal use of the anonymous "FAA Supplement" that circulates widely among airplane pilots. If_ _you're interested, try googling "High Flight with FAA Supplement" or PM me and I'll send you a link. Hope the formatting for the poetry works. Always problematic here. Your comments are welcome._


	20. Chapter 20

Ends with a Horse, Part 9b

_Flight Plan_

* * *

When Zoe entered the bridge a short time later on her crutches, she found Mal extending a hand in River's direction, saying only, "Put out my hand—" before they both snorted with laughter and doubled over their control consoles.

"You wanna share the joke?" she asked with all the severity she could muster. It was hard not to crack a smile herself, the mirth of the two lost souls of Serenity was so infectious.

Mal wiped his streaming eyes and controlled his snorts of laughter, waving at Zoe to give him a moment. "You been seein' to things?" he began, attempting to fall into business with her. The sides of his mouth still crept upward, and his eyes danced with contained amusement.

"Sir," she began her report, "I done a hundred things—"

Gales of laughter cut her off before she could get another word in.

. . .

Inara entered the dining room and immediately heard hoots of unrestrained laughter coming from the bridge. She followed the sound and found Zoe and River sitting in the pilots' chairs, laughing their asses off, while Mal stood doubled over in the gap between them, his eyes streaming with mirth.

"No!" Zoe was laughing so hard her ribs hurt.

"_Danced the skies—"_ River gasped out.

"Gotta wear four-point harness during periods of severe sky-dancing, it's in the regulations," Mal choked out, and they all started shrieking with laughter again.

Inara couldn't help but be drawn in, and smiled widely as the three members of the bridge crew gradually leveled off from the heights of laughter.

"_High in the sunlit silence—" _River supplied.

"You all know what sunlit silence means," Zoe offered. As soon as the eyes of all three were on her, she deadpanned, "Engine failure in atmo."

More whoops of laughter followed. Inara didn't know what game they were playing, but she couldn't help but laugh along with them.

"Wash's favorite line was _'I've chased the shouting wind along and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air'_," Zoe told them, then added in a voice reminiscent of Wash quoting flight regulations, "Pilots flinging eager craft through footless halls of air are reminded that they alone are responsible for maintaining separation from other eager craft."

They could all just _see_ Wash saying that, and they all laughed and smiled, a little more moderately this time. "That was one of Wash's favorite poems," Zoe added. "Had it tacked up over his side of the bed down in the bunk. Not the John Gillespie Magee standard version, but the one with annotations from Space Traffic Control."

"I don't know many pilots who can't quote from it," Mal responded. "Bet Wash could recite the whole gorram thing."

"You shoulda seen his shadow puppet version," Zoe replied.

"I am truly sorry I missed that," Mal told her, smiling still, but with heartfelt sincerity. "That had to 've been a sight to see." He wiped his eyes again, the remains of humor covering the other emotions. "天啊 Tiān ā, I miss that man."

Zoe was silent.

"We all do," Inara agreed.

"He's still here," River said. They all looked at her. "He's here, on the bridge. Wash's spirit inhabits the bridge. He'll never leave Serenity."

"You know," Mal offered tentatively, into the silence, "when I'm up here alone, late at night, I could swear Wash still…uh…talks to me." He stopped. The three women were staring at him.

Zoe nodded, and waited. Mal seemed to have lost his momentum and stalled. "Talks to you, sir?" Zoe prompted, at last, somewhat sharply.

"Um…yeah," Mal replied softly. "Not…actually. But it's like he's in my head, tellin' me things I should oughtta take mind of...just being himself…bein' Wash. Good sense wrapped in a humorous package." He hoped he didn't sound too deranged, telling them he was in the habit of conversing with the shade of departed Wash on the bridge.

"Good sense," Zoe echoed. "What's he tellin' you, sir? Advising you how to avoid ambush?"

Mal's smile returned. "Zoe, you know he never did have but one point of view on that. That our jobs were _all_ too damned dangerous, even the milk runs." He walked over to the control panel at the side, reached over Zoe's head, and flipped the three check switches on the panel. "Nah, he gives me advice about…you know."

"No, sir, I _don't_ know."

"About, uh…well, you know, he's the only married fella I know."

"He gives you advice about _marriage?"_ Inara's voice conveyed her interest.

Mal looked away. Despite his best efforts, a red flush was creeping up his neck.

"What's he tell you, sir?" Zoe asked.

"It's really none of your business, Zoe," he mumbled.

"Just curious, is all," Zoe pressed.

River looked eagerly at him, all ears. Inara held him in an expectant gaze. Dang it, the women were all gangin' up on him. "Just tells me not to be such a 顽固 wángù sonofabitch all the time," he grumbled, and straightened up. "Just got…captain-y things to do," he claimed, and left the bridge briskly.

The three women stared at each other in the silence left in the wake of the Captain's departure.

"It's still his watch," River observed.

. . .

"Good news, Boromiro. Our target has filed a flight plan with Space Traffic Control."

"They coming into range?" Boromiro asked, peering over Anatoly's shoulder at the screen.

"No," Anatoly replied, his tone indicating clearly that Boromiro had asked a stupid question. "I said, _filed_ a flight plan. Hasn't _activated_ it yet. According to the filed plan, they'll pass into the Core System this Sunday, with a scheduled arrival at Bernadette next Thursday."

Boromiro made a note of the projected arrival day. "I'll alert the boss. She'll want to have a team ready—"

"No, 二百五 èrbǎiwǔ, _I'll_ alert the boss, and if you continue acting as brilliant as you've been doing today, I'll recommend she put you on janitorial services that day when they come in."

Boromiro peered again at the screen, which showed a scattering of blips, each one representing a ship that they were tracking. "So the agent was successful, then?"

"Well, I guess we'll find out when the moment of truth comes," Anatoly shrugged. "She did pretty much guarantee results. 'I get it done' was her by-line. It's why 代號 Dài Hào hired her."

"代號 Dài Hào. What a stupid code name."

"Yeah, I agree. I mean, a code name that means 'code name'? Could he make it any more obvious?"

"I dunno. Sometimes people don't see the most obvious stuff."

Anatoly directed a scathing look at Boromiro, but Boromiro was oblivious to his unintentional humor. "How'd she do it?" Boromiro continued. "The usual—software update service?"

That was the usual way of activating the latent code. NavWare Services was a daughter company of Blue Sun Corporation. They had the contract from Space Traffic Control to write the official navigational software updates for the government agency. NavWare also offered a service subscription to clients. Regular service calls for nav system maintenance, to update navigational software as required by law, plus troubleshooting and repair services when needed. Many companies that maintained fleets of interplanetary transport opted for the full service contract. It was a win-win situation. The transport companies were guaranteed compliance with Alliance law, and through NavWare Services, Blue Sun had legal access to the flight computers of thousands of potential competitors. What was not so entirely legal was the fact that within the perfectly functional and well-liked navigational software was embedded code that could be activated by certain protocols. Unactivated, the code lay neutral and harmless, and was virtually undetectable. When the code was activated, it enabled spyware functions that could report the location of the rival's ship to monitors back at Blue Sun (such as Mssrs. Anatoly Tse and Boromiro Janiewicz) as well as giving remote access to the system it was installed on—up to and including command of the remote control flight bot.

"Nah, the agent didn't act as a software service provider. It seems she had a personal acquaintance with the captain and crew. Friends or lovers or some such."

"So she sweet-talked them into it."

Anatoly shrugged. "I dunno. 代號 Dài Hào was telling some cockamamie story about a crate filled with chickens. She was gonna stowaway."

"Chickens? Like, _live chickens?_ She was gonna stowaway in a chicken coop?"

"Probably just 代號 Dài Hào talking big."

"Sure. Because, chickens? Seriously. No one in their right mind would want to spend time cooped up in a box with chickens."

"You got personal experience with this, Boromiro?"

"My aunt used to raise chickens in her backyard."

"Your aunt actually _had_ a backyard? Here on Bernadette?" Bernadettiens, as a rule, lived in small apartments. Rich Bernadettiens lived in larger apartments. There were public parks, but as a rule, no one but the most extravagantly rich Bernadettiens owned so much as a square foot of unpaved property.

"No, she lived on Santo. But really, chickens? Can you imagine the smell?"

Anatoly had no clue how chickens smelled. Other than cooked chicken, on a plate. Or maybe, cooked chicken-style protein, was more often the case.

Boromiro was still ranting. "How stupid an idea is that?"

"At least 代號 Dài Hào gets his job done. Did you hear the scuttlebutt about Butter?"

Boromiro nodded gravely, inwardly annoyed by Anatoly's mangling of the man's name, but smug for once about definitively knowing more than Anatoly about something. The code name was _Baatar_, which a little cortex search revealed meant "hero" in one of the old languages of Earth-that-was. A much better code name than "code name," in Boromiro's opinion, anyway. He had met the man once _before_ he became a full agent, when he still used his own name, Bill Borjigin. Agent Baatar had been involved in a retrieval operation gone bad on Beaumonde. The target had escaped, his partner had been killed, and Bataar was currently on an all-expense-paid trip to New Siberia, on St. Albans. Maybe one-way. Turning back to his console, Boromiro wondered if agents got to choose their own code name, or if they chose it for you. Wouldn't he love to choose Anatoly's code name? Ahh, the possibilities were almost endless—Brownnose, Bootlick, Suckup, Kowtow, Toadie, Smithers…

Anatoly continued to speculate, with vulture-like avidity, about the likelihood of a renewed application being accepted for the elite program, now that there was an opening, what with Baatar's partner's demise. He continued to pronounce it "Butter," and Boromiro had to bite his tongue. "Maybe two openings, if Butter's exile becomes permanent."

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

天啊 Tiān ā [God]

顽固 wángù [stubborn]

二百五 èrbǎiwǔ [stupid]

代號 Dài Hào [Code name]

Baatar [hero (Mogolian)]

* * *

_Thanks to Mar Komi for supplying the phrase "good sense wrapped in a humorous package" to describe Wash. More from "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, with FAA Supplement._


	21. Chapter 21

Ends with a Horse, Part 10a

_Imagination_

* * *

"He does that often, you know," River offered conversationally, glancing over her shoulder in the direction of Mal's retreating footsteps.

Zoe, who remained seated in the pilot's seat, shot River a look. "What? Runs out on his watch?"

"No. Talks to Wash."

Zoe made no reply, but sat rigid and unmoving in her chair. She looked impassive, but Inara had caught the briefest flash of pain in her eyes before she covered it with her usual stoicism. Inara had been at the point of leaving the bridge herself, but now she moved closer to River instead, and asked the questions that Zoe wasn't asking. "What do you mean, River?" Inara hoped she was acting in accordance with Zoe's wishes in pursuing the subject.

"He's here, you know. Never leaves Serenity."

"I know, sweetie. You said that before. I also feel that Wash's spirit inhabits the bridge. He would have liked to be remembered here." She glanced at the plastic dinosaurs arranged carefully on the console in front of Zoe. Was it Zoe who kept them in order? River? Or Mal?

_Mal._ She suddenly understood, and knew it to be true. It was Mal who dusted and arranged the dinosaurs, who kept them up as a memorial to Wash—his unspoken way of comforting his friend by honoring her husband's memory.

"Captain sees him. Talks to him. Quite a lot."

"Do you see him, too, River?" Inara asked cautiously. Zoe continued to stare fixedly out the window, but her breath hitched ever so slightly.

"Of course not!" River snapped, turning on her with an indignant look that clearly said, _Do you think I'm crazy?!_ "In his _head,"_ she explained, tapping the side of her forehead significantly with her finger.

"Oh." Inara wasn't going to question it. River always seemed to know what was going on inside other people's heads. "So Mal…talks to Wash…while you're here? Have you heard him talking with Wash?"

River nodded. "Preacher-man, too."

"He…talks with Shepherd Book, _too?_ _Here?"_

"First time on the bridge, recently," River elaborated, still nodding, "but I think he customarily communes with the Shepherd elsewhere on the ship. This is Wash's place." Inara was wide-eyed, while Zoe continued to stare fixedly into the Black. "Psychoanalysis," River added, by way of explanation.

"Psychoanalysis?" Inara puzzled on this for a moment. She was concerned. "You think Mal needs to see a psychoanalyst because he's hearing the voices of our departed friends in his head, and conversing with them?"

River rolled her eyes. _No._ "Self-analysis. Wash and Book represent opposing aspects. Lost sense of humor and zest for life. Lost faith and conscience. Can't bring himself to say it to himself. Puts the thoughts in the mouth of Book or Wash, and is able to listen to them." Inara was staring, so she pointed out, "Always _could_ listen to them." Inara was a bit slow on the uptake, so River added a further clarification. "Imagination."

. . .

"_You are very much lacking in imagination,"_ Mal had said to Zoe, as he showed her for the first time around the broken-down hulk that would become Serenity.

"_I _imagine_ that's so, sir,"_ she'd responded, with the driest of dry humor.

He'd shot her a look, fully aware of her humor, but he responded only to the surface of her statement, guiding her through the cargo bay for the complete tour of the ship. _"C'mon. You ain't even seen most of it. I'll show you the rest."_

Imagination. She didn't lack for it. But hers was directed quite differently from Mal's. Mal's imagination ran wild. It led him to do crazy, inspired things. Like the time in the War when he organized an unauthorized raid on an Alliance listening post outside of Skaggsville.

_The Purplebellies were ensconced in a farmhouse, and Private Reynolds and his hastily recruited "team" took them completely by surprise. They took five Feds prisoner, captured some communications equipment, and most important, got hold of Alliance codes and authorizations that enabled Independent command to intercept and decipher encrypted Alliance communications for several weeks before the Purplebellies caught on. There were some in Independent Command who wanted to court-martial Private Reynolds for acting without orders, but given the spectacular results of the raid, there were others who felt he ought to be decorated and promoted for taking the initiative. _

_Reynolds didn't give a hoot one way or the other. Turned out he organized the raid because it was peach season, and the listening post was the only thing that stood in the way between the Browncoat camp and a vast, abandoned orchard of fully ripe peaches. Soon as the dust had settled, Reynolds organized peach-picking parties, and their sparse and meager diet of dry compressed protein bars was soon supplemented with abundant bushels of juicy, vitamin-rich, tree-ripe peaches. _

"_Why'd you do it?" Zoe asked him, after he returned from HQ, where he'd been summoned to face yet another dressing-down accompanied by simultaneous congratulations. As the outrageous story made the rounds, more and more of the brass wanted to meet the cheeky private from Shadow who'd pulled off this tremendously successful unauthorized stunt. _

"_Smelled the peaches in the wind on guard duty, Corporal," he answered. "Imagined I was eatin' peach pie. Couldn't stop thinkin' on it." He gave her one of his trademark dimpled grins and added, "Besides, Cresthaven is my favorite variety. Ain't much I wouldn't do for a nice, tree-ripe Cresthaven peach." _

"_Oh really?" she responded, whisking the peach basket out of his reach. "How about latrine duty for a week?" _

"_Come now, that ain't fair!" he exclaimed, lunging for it. "That peach is mine by rights, and you know it!" _

"_Gotta earn it, soldier," she replied, scooting easily out of range. "What'll it be, latrines or skunk patrol?"_

It was that kind of imagination that kept people's spirits up in the desperate fighting of Serenity Valley. It was something few leaders could have done—something few of them _had_ done. It was why Mal, and Zoe, and the ones around them, were still standing—or at least still _crawling_—at the end of that battle.

It was also his vivid imagination that had let him envision a fresh start, after the war. He dreamed of finding freedom in space, wresting a new life out of the ashes in which they lay, and he acted on that dream to make it a reality. It was his imagination they had to thank for all the improvised plans that got them out of potentially deadly scrapes.

But it was that same imagination that got them into many of those scrapes in the first place. "Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible." She'd read that quote somewhere—one of Wash's books, she reckoned—and it applied to Mal. Inspired but dangerous.

"_They don't like it when you shoot at them. I worked that out myself."_ It took an imaginative 神经病 shén jīng bìng like Mal Reynolds to get to the point of _needing_ to "work that out" in the first place. And it was also his imagination that led him to the darkest places.

PTSD. Zoe knew his nightmares were worse than hers. In the early post-war days, after their release from the internment camp, when they'd been living together—if you could call such a marginal existence "living"—in the slums of Hera, they both woke up frequently with post-combat nightmares. Her own nightmares woke her often enough, but Mal had nightmares so frequently she wondered if he wouldn't get more rest if he just stayed awake, instead of tryin' to sleep. She knew it well; gorram things woke her up nearly every time, until she learned to tune 'em out. She knew PTSD up close and personal, and it was bad. Made you angry that you'd survived years of being bombed and shot at only to be taken down by dreams as weren't even real. She had tried to deal with it by repressing the memories. She avoided talking about or even thinking about the bad times—indeed she avoided _feeling_. She went emotionally numb.

But Wash had saved her. He made it clear that he thought she was _hot_ from the moment Mal hired him to pilot Serenity. She gave him freezing looks that would have stopped most men dead in their tracks. He responded by asking her out on a date. She gave him the cold shoulder. He laughed and simply refused to take 'no' for an answer, relentlessly coming on to her. She grew more and more angry—and that, it seemed, turned the key in the lock and opened the door. Wash practically _forced_ her to reconnect with her feelings. At first, feelings of intense irritation at the pesky pilot, then reluctant humor at his irrepressible goofiness, and finally, recognition that she returned his feelings of love and devotion. Mal had saved her from physically dying in the war, but Wash saved her from emotional death, and pulled her out of the dark trap. She hadn't completely overcome all the symptoms of PTSD, but she had moved on. She had made peace with her past—somewhat, at least. She was able to marry Wash and recapture a semblance of a normal life.

"_You need to _feel_, __秋花 __qiū huā__. You're a human being. A woman. It's okay to feel like a woman. I mean," he revised hastily, as she glowered at him, "a really strong, kick-ass warrior woman, but—" He kissed her. _ _哎呀__Āiyā__, his lips were like a secret weapon. "But still. A woman. You're _supposed_ to feel like a woman." He then proceeded to use his talented hands to make her feel _very much_ like a woman._

"_You do make me feel like a woman," she told him afterwards. "Hope I made you feel like a man."_

"_Feel more like a rag doll at the moment, __秋花__qiū huā__, but give me a little recovery time," he grinned._

_She beamed him with a pillow._

Zoe _felt_. Love for Wash. Grief for her loss. Love for the baby, as yet unborn, that filled her and kept her company. She was not alone. Wash was gone, but she was not alone. Grief and love filled her, overwhelmed her, and tears rolled down her cheeks. She felt, like a woman.

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glossary

神经病 shén jīng bìng [insane person]

秋花 qiū huā [autumn flower]

哎呀 Āiyā [Damn]

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_As always, I appreciate hearing from you, the readers._


	22. Chapter 22

Ends with a Horse, Part 10b

_Imagination and animal husbandry_

* * *

She didn't know how long she'd been staring out at the black, overwhelmed by love and grief, with tears rolling down her cheeks. She was _not_ alone. Wash's spirit _did_ inhabit the bridge—she felt it was so, when she took watch. Though she knew it was Mal who dusted and re-arranged the dinosaurs, still when she came onto the bridge, her eye was inevitably drawn to the dinos on the console. She always looked forward to seeing what playful and imaginative set-up they would be in this time. It felt like Wash was still present, in a way. She was not _alone_.

She wasn't alone. River was still sitting in the co-pilot seat, talking with Inara, who also hadn't left. Zoe pulled out a handkerchief and surreptitiously wiped away the tears. She straightened her posture.

"I'll take the Captain's watch, River. You go on."

She went through the standard system checks, noting that the flight software updates from Space Traffic Control were current—more than current. Been downloaded twice more since Hektor. What was the Captain thinking?

She acknowledged Inara's farewell, and settled back into her seat as River and the Companion glided gracefully from the bridge. She gazed out into the Black.

_Darkness like you can't imagine. _Mal's imagination kept the darkness alive and active and near the forefront of his life. He tried to shut it out, but he hadn't processed it, hadn't dealt with it, hadn't made peace with it, not even to the small extent Zoe had. He shoved it down deeper and tried not to think about it, and deep down it fermented and built up and burbled up to plague him when his guard was down. His PTSD had an additional component that Zoe had never had to deal with—the loss of Shadow. They were already in the Alliance prison camp when the news came. She never saw Mal shed so much as a single tear for Shadow, then. His spirit was completely depleted by the ordeal in Serenity Valley, and he was in a state of emotional numbness. She reckoned now that he'd never really processed it, never really grieved. And his imagination ran rampant.

The news of what happened on Shadow was vague, and only the sketchiest details reached them. Unsubstantiated reports told of lava flows, poisonous gases, ash falls, burning land, and boiling seas. And death. Death, death, death. There were so many unknowns there that all one could do was imagine how horrible it had been. And wasn't that Mal's problem? He _imagined_ everything in wretched detail, and his imagination—vivid, strong, active—was colored dark, dark, dark by his combat experience. What he imagined was so horrible that he had to shove it away, deeper and further down than the horrors of Serenity Valley. It built up until the pressure on his subconscious was unbearable, and then it burst out in violent flashbacks and nightmares. He couldn't always repress it, and the fact that he couldn't keep these feelings permanently bottled up made him feel he was a failure. Broken. Damaged goods. How often had she heard him say that, or express it in some unspoken way?

Mal's imagination made his PTSD that much worse, but it also was his ticket to recovery. He could also imagine the other side of the coin, and if River was right, his imagined conversations with Wash and the Shepherd were like therapy. Mal would never see a psychiatrist, but it seemed he was doing his own bit of psychoanalysis. It might work, she supposed, long as he stuck with Wash and the Shepherd, and didn't try to talk it out with some twisted personality like, say, Saffron or Niska, in his head.

. . .

After the first night, Jayne discovered that he didn't have to play music 24-7 to cover the chicken noises. Chickens settled down at night. But the earliest beginnings of the ship's day cycle got them started again—and it weren't just roosters what crowed at the crack of dawn, apparently.

"It ain't easy, keepin' both a' you gals satisfied," Jayne remarked as he scattered a handful of scratch in their box. General Tso and Kung Pao greedily devoured the feed, pausing between pecks to give Jayne the ol' one-eye chicken-y stare. "You gals sure know how to keep a man on his toes." He had to rise in the dark before ship's day cycle began, turn on The Juggling Geese's Greatest Hits, clean out the fouled straw, refresh the chickens' water, and feed them, all before the hour at which decent folk arose. "It's a good thing for y'all that I ain't decent folk."

Kung Pao was the loud one, often crowin' before The Geese even finished their first song, but General Tso was more vocal, cluckin' constantly from dawn to dusk, and even after dark if he so much as turned on the night-light to use the can.

He had a couple of close calls before he learned better. First time, he'd figured on startin' up the music as soon as the ship's day cycle began. He was awoken that morning at five am by both the chickens cluckin' and crowin' away. Chickens' notion of what was 'daytime' differed from his, 'cause they were up and rarin' to go soon as the night cycle shifted over and ambient light patterns changed, while according to Jayne, no day didn't properly begin until a man could actually _see_. The birds were sensitive to pre-dawn light and started crowin' _before_ ship's "sunrise." So Jayne, contrary to all good sense and habit, became an early riser—get up with the birds, early bird gets the worm, an' all that.

That worked well for a while, until the day that he slept through his alarm. All this early risin' was tough on a fella's system. He found he couldn't stay awake at night no more—no sooner was he down in his bunk, than he was face down in the pillow, fast asleep. Didn't even have time for his usual bedtime routine, which involved flippin' through his favorite girly mags and…other things. He was too tired. How the hell'd Mal ever find the energy to get up so gorram early all gorram time?

Finally, he got smart. He set the music player to start automatically a half hour before ship's day cycle, and learned to sleep through the first five songs. Seemed to do the trick.

"What I gotta put up with, livin' with you two," he remarked out loud to the birds. General Tso cocked her head at him and stared coldly for a moment, before resuming her pecking and clucking. Kung Pao strutted about indifferently. Jayne reached past her, to the corner of the box, and pulled out his prize. A nice shiny egg.

. . .

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* * *

_Thanks for reading, and thanks for your comments._


	23. Chapter 23

Ends with a Horse, Part 11a

_Inara and Zoe have a little palaver_

* * *

When Zoe finally left the bridge, hours later, having completed Mal's watch for him, Inara took the unusual step of visiting the first mate in her bunk.

She entered upon the first mate's calm invitation, and as she climbed down, she took in the changes—and lack of changes—since the last time she had stood in Zoe's quarters. Her visits to this room were infrequent, and her first impression was that very little had changed. Zoe had a soldier's sense of orderliness that had always done battle with Wash's spontaneous and erratic spurts of organizing. Despite its tidiness, Zoe's side of the bunk looked lived in, with books on the bedside table, while Wash's side, though slightly more chaotic, seemed frozen in time—unchanged, as if he would step down the ladder at any moment and join his wife. One of his plastic dinosaurs stood on the bedside table on his side of the bed, while his array of bright Hawaiian shirts still hung in the closet.

"I thought you were still staying in the passenger dorm," was Inara's first remark. "But apparently you can manage the ladder, with your knee—?" Inara couldn't imagine navigating a ladder, six months pregnant and with a bad knee.

"I got arms, Inara." Zoe flexed her muscles, wincing a bit. That's when Inara remembered the bruising to her chest. Her body armor had stopped the bullet, but the impact had knocked her down. She had to be still sore. "But it's true gettin' down was easier than it'll be gettin' back up. Just wanted to lie down on my own bed."

"Are you going to be able to get back up that ladder?"

"Cross that bridge when I come to it," Zoe replied, closing her eyes. She was obviously not inclined to move at the moment.

Inara entered directly on the subject that had brought her there. "I hope that wasn't…hard for you, Zoe. Listening to all of us talk about Wash."

"No, it was good." Zoe was lying on her side of the bed. As her pregnancy progressed, she discovered that if she didn't spend a certain portion of the day stretched out horizontal, she paid dearly at day's end. She wasn't used to such idleness; it made her feel lazy. Having Inara come visit was a welcome diversion.

"Got me thinkin' about Wash, about the good things. That's good. It's…" Zoe's voice turned to a harsh whisper as the words rushed out of her, "Inara, sometimes I worry that I'll forget him."

"You won't forget him, Zoe. You'll never forget. And neither will we. He was part of our family, and still lives in our hearts."

"_So long as ears can hear and eyes can see,  
__so long lives this, and this gives life to thee,"  
_Zoe quoted, tapping the cover of the book she had set aside when Inara entered the room.

Inara nodded in agreement, surprised that Zoe was quoting Shakespeare.

"Wash always did like those sonnets," Zoe continued. She nodded toward the book on her nightstand. "It's one of Wash's books. I been reading them. Man always did like a poem."

Inara had never known that Wash liked Shakespeare. The closest she'd gotten was when Wash would propose fill-in-the-blank bawdy limericks as a party game. There were unsuspected depths to Wash that only his wife knew. Zoe was reading poetry because it connected her to Wash. What else had she missed, because she wasn't paying attention?

"Inara," Zoe continued, "Wash saved me. Mal saved me in the war, but Wash saved me afterwards. Now, I'm not gonna downplay it. Mal saved my life—more than once. Saved me from a miserable, muddy death at Serenity Valley, saved me from abuse at the internment camp, saved me after the war by giving me a job, something to do." _He's still saving me—keeps me working, keeps my mind from dwelling on it. _"But let me tell you—it was Wash who saved my sanity. He got me to laugh again. First time I laughed since the war was at one of Wash's stupid jokes. Helped me figure out how to _live,_ as opposed to just gettin' through the day. Helped me regain my balance. Helped me find peace." She put her hand on her belly. She could feel the child stirring within. The baby usually took her rest time as a signal to wake up and start kicking.

"Mal needs to do that," Zoe continued, turning the subject to the Captain. She'd had enough of wallowing in her own grief for one day. "I saved his 屁股 pìgu in the war as well, and probably more 'n a few times since. But I can't make him happy. That's your job."

"My job?"

Zoe didn't answer directly. She shifted onto her back, watching as the baby's movements rippled her belly. "Mal lost everything at Serenity Valley. He gave everything he had to keep us going. He kept us together, kept us fighting, kept us sane. But there was a cost, Inara, a cost to his spirit. Mercy, forgiveness, and trust—those were some of the things he left back there."

Inara listened carefully. Zoe rarely talked about this period of history, and Mal avoided it altogether.

"Never lost his sense of honor, nor his loyalty to those he cares about. But he lost just about everything else, particularly after word reached us that Shadow was destroyed. He lost heart and hope, lost faith in god and in human heroics. Lost his sense of humor, and for a while I thought he even lost his most basic instincts of self-preservation."

Inara had certainly seen Mal behave in a reckless manner. Was there also a suicidal component? Or did he just not care if there were risks to himself? She'd never heard this part of his history. He never talked about the darkest days in the immediate aftermath of the war.

"We were turned out of that internment camp with nothin' more than the clothes on our backs. They gave us each a bus ticket to the city of Argos and five credits to buy a meal with. Told us to go find ourselves a job." Zoe snorted. "You can guess what happened."

Inara nodded. There had been news headlines in the Core. Hera experienced a crime wave. The politicians ranted that it was due to the innate criminality and irredeemable badness of the rebel Browncoats. Common sense said that if you turned out tens of thousands of hungry and unemployed ex-soldiers at once without a hope of finding legal employment, they would beg, borrow, or steal as necessary to get by. The fact that they were all trained in the use of firearms simply meant that armed robbery would go up as well, as soon as they managed to acquire weapons. "You turned to crime, as the only way of getting by."

Zoe confirmed it with her silence. "Mal wouldn't take from Hera's civilian population. Said they'd suffered enough, with the war turning their world into a battleground. Only take from the Alliance, who'd taken so much from him he felt whatever they had was owed him. 'Course, the Feds were watchful over their own, so it was a tough way to get by. Most days we didn't have enough to eat. We lived in a bombed-out section of the city, in basements, shacks, rubble-strewn lots, wherever we could find shelter from the elements, moving on whenever the Law started to get too close."

Inara was appalled by the picture she painted. Cold, starving, exposed to the elements, and on the run—stealing a living from a well-armed and better-equipped force that had the legal authority to kill them.

"After a couple a' months of this 狗屁 gǒupì, I was at the end of my tether. We couldn't get off that gorram rock, 'cause we never had enough money to pay for passage. Coulda taken up indentures, I suppose, but Mal wouldn't do that. Said it was selling ourselves into slavery. Line between indenture and slavery's always been a mite fuzzy," she said in an aside. "Made me all the more amazed when Mal fought the law and won on Persephone." Zoe's eyes grew distant, lost in the memories she had conjured. She blinked and shook it off. "Browncoats could apply for repatriation to their home world, down at the Veterans Affairs Office in Argos. Waiting list was months long, and even so you had to have funds. Anyways, there was nowhere to go. My family's spaceship was blown up very early on in the war, and Shadow was destroyed."

Zoe adjusted her position until the baby sat more comfortably in her, then took up the tale again. "The list of jobs we were disqualified for on account of our Browncoat status was as long as my leg. We tried and tried again to get jobs—got desperate enough to try even for the crap jobs and be grateful if we got 'em—but competition was fierce and as the days wore on we come to look downright disreputable. _I_ wouldn'ta hired me, the way I looked back then, and Mal looked more like a walking shadow than a man.

"Managed to score a reasonable take once, one of our 'jobs.' Went to a bar to celebrate—or drown our sorrows for the time being, 'cause there weren't no way to save for a rainy day. Ran into a fella in that bar, guy who'd been Quartermaster Sergeant for our Company back on Whittier. Recognized me, asked if I knew what became of Sergeant Reynolds." She gave Inara a piercing look. "Mal was sittin' right there. Guy didn't even recognize him, that's how low Mal'd sunk."

Inara didn't speak; the image Zoe had conjured up was dreadful.

"Thought he'd give up, and die in a ditch. But then he got the ship."

"How did he get the ship?"

Zoe shrugged. "Got arrested for vagrancy." She gave a mirthless laugh. "Weren't so bad. Lock-up for the night, didn't have to sleep out in the cold. Even gave us breakfast. Next day, the Feds chewed him out. They'd checked his record, and found out that Hera Central Bank was lookin' for him. Had a bulletin out on the public notices board. Why hadn't he checked the gorram public bulletins? Like we could just walk into a public access site and use the cortex. Check our e-mail. Chat on the social networks." Another snort. "Way we looked, we were gettin' thrown outta _jail_ for bein' too disreputable-lookin'. Feds sent us over to the bank in the back of the paddy wagon. Figured the bank would dish the dirt on him, give them something they could really lock him up for. Instead, the bank manager thanked the police for bringing him over and confirming his identity, and told us that Mal was the legal owner of a substantial bank account held in their trust. To the astonishment of all and sundry."

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glossary

屁股 pìgu [butt]

狗屁 gǒupì [bullshit]

* * *

_To be continued in the next chapter..._


	24. Chapter 24

Ends with a Horse, Part 11b

_Inara and Zoe continue their palaver_

* * *

"Anyways, we spent our first credits gettin' cleaned up and buying clothes as was decent enough not to scare children away." Zoe looked Inara full in the face. "You know the rest. There was enough to buy a ship, and just barely enough to outfit it and get it flyin' again. Hired a mechanic and a pilot and got the hell off that rock. Never looked back."

That explained why Mal and Zoe never wanted to return to Hera. The place had been the scene of so much unmitigated misery.

"Serenity gave Mal a purpose. Something to take care of and look after. He always had a strong sense of responsibility. Well, now he had a ship and a crew that he was responsible for, and he started rising from the ashes, doin' what needed to be done to keep the ship in the air and the crew fed and paid. To keep flyin'. He was a damn good sergeant, and he quickly became a damn good captain."

Inara nodded. She was sure of it.

"Serenity saved him. He started gathering back some of the good things he'd lost. What he has now is the ship—the ship and us on it."

"The bank account—" Inara began.

"Never did know where it came from."

"It was in his name?"

Zoe nodded.

"But surely it was known whose account he had inherited?"

"Wasn't properly a legacy. Account had been set up under _his_ name."

"But he didn't set it up himself. Someone set it up for him. Who?"

Zoe shrugged. "I have no idea. Mal somehow had a notion the account was set up by his ma, but there was no evidence of that, and no one from Shadow to ask. It was like money dropped out of the sky. Mal always felt he didn't deserve it, that he was unworthy of the legacy."

"Why would he feel unworthy? After all that suffering…surely he deserved to have something go his way for once."

Zoe was silent, and Inara was left alone with her own speculations for a time. Why in the worlds would Mal feel he didn't deserve it? Did he really think he was so undeserving? And yet she knew the answer to her own questions. He gave his best effort, gave _all_, at Serenity Valley, only to find himself losing everything—abandoned by Independent Command, his prayer unheard by his god. He found himself on the losing side, and, being a responsible man, he shouldered the blame on behalf of the others, and took their punishment for them. His reward for heroism was to hear the news that his entire home world was destroyed. He was—or had been then—a devout believer, a follower of the austere denomination of Christianity that was widely practiced on Shadow. Serenity Valley, the destruction of Shadow, the hell of the prison camp and the suffering in the slums of Hera: if he felt that these misfortunes were some kind of divine retribution, that he was being punished for his sins, perhaps it was unsurprising that the notion entered his head that he had been judged unworthy. Inara was not so surprised that he had abandoned his religion under such circumstances, if it brought him feelings of guilt and unworthiness, instead of solace and comfort, in his time of misfortune.

Zoe broke in on her thoughts. "Inara," she said seriously, "that man has a terribly difficult time accepting happiness. If talkin' to Wash in his head can help him do that, I got no problem with it. Hell, he can go talkin' out loud with Wash all over the ship if he wants to, if it helps him realize it ain't a sin to be happy."

"You…thank you, Zoe."

"For what, Inara?"

_For telling me everything, for telling me what Mal won't say. _"For understanding."

"Inara, I understand because that's what Wash did for me. Pulled me out of the dark, made me realize there was joy in life as well as sorrow. If the memory of Wash can help do that for the Captain—Mal, then I'm all for it.

"But listen, Inara," Zoe continued, "you're key here. Because it's for _you_, he's found his heart again. Thought it died and shriveled up, but turns out it's alive and thumping. And it beats for you, Inara. Ooh!"

This unexpected interjection from Zoe was prompted by an unusually sharp kick from the baby. Even from a distance, Inara could see it.

"Do you want to feel the baby kicking?" Zoe queried, noting the direction of Inara's gaze.

Inara nodded, silently.

"Sit down here." Zoe patted the side of the bed next to where she lay. Inara did as she was told.

"May I—?"

"Right here, Inara." Zoe directed Inara's hands. "I think that's a knee, or maybe an elbow."

"Oh!" Inara jumped, startled at how energetic the little infant's movements were. She couldn't help but smile, as she imagined what the little baby looked like, part Wash and part Zoe.

"Little one's got hiccoughs," Zoe announced, and Inara felt it—little chirpy movements at infrequent, but regular intervals.

"Zoe?" Mal's voice called down the open hatch. "You down there?"

"Yes, sir," Zoe answered without moving so much as an eyelid. "You can come down if you want."

"Zoe," Mal continued as he descended the ladder, "when you went through the forward lockers, did you find any spare—well…will you look at that?" He grinned enormously at finding Zoe sprawled on the bed with her feet elevated, and Inara with both her hands on Zoe's swollen belly and an indescribably wonderous look on her face as she felt the baby kicking. He contemplated the scene for a moment—天啊 tiān ā how he loved that look on Inara's face. Motherhood would look good on her, too.

Inara lifted her head, and smiled at him, her eyes shining with baby joy. Zoe observed the two of them silently.

"I believe this is the part where I start callin' you names," Mal said slowly to Inara. "薄情 Bóqíng, 花心 huāxīn, and 外心 wàixīn, is how it starts, I do believe. Then it's 烂鱼臭 làn yú chòu traitor, ain't that what comes next?" he continued, as a teasing smile spread over his face. "I think that's my cue to start pitchin' crockery." He gazed searchingly around Zoe's bunk. "Don't see none, but I could toss a plastic dinosaur, if Zoe don't mind it."

"Oh, you!" Inara exclaimed, jumping up from Zoe's side and throwing herself at him. She kissed him, and he kissed her back with enthusiasm. Zoe wasn't ordinarily one to observe private acts of romance, but it was damn good to see them kiss like that. Inara threw her arms around Mal's neck and shoulders, murmurs of "Sorry" and "亲爱 Qīn'ài" slipping in between her kisses, while Mal's teasing expression had been completely overtaken by the heartfelt love and happiness that radiated off of him in waves. Zoe smiled to see their reconciliation. After a minute or two, however, she gave a discreet cough and interrupted.

"Glad to see you two are such good friends again. Now how about you go get yourselves a room? And I don't mean _mine_."

Mal turned and gave Zoe a sheepish grin, while Inara scampered up the ladder. Mal gave her backside a playful swat and scampered after her.

Zoe spoke to her belly. "You may get a cousin yet, little one."

. . .

"Why aren't we getting a regular signal from the target?" Boromiro wondered out loud. He had his own speculations, but he was interested in Anatoly's take on the situation, and asking a dumb question was a sure-fire way to get Anatoly talking.

As it happened, Anatoly had gathered fresh intelligence. He'd been called in to make duplicate data sticks for the bosses' secure cortex devices, and had taken the opportunity to speed-read one of the reports as "verification" that the copies were true to the original. With hot intel like this, it was all he could do not to show off his importance, and he had been sitting impatiently on the info all day. Boromiro's stupid question opened the floodgates. "The agent enabled the tracker, but was unable to turn on the continuous send mode."

Wow. Boromiro was impressed. Anatoly actually seemed to know what he was talking about. "Why not?" he asked, eager for more. "It's pretty straightforward. Didn't she have the codes?"

"Yeah, 代號 Dài Hào gave her the codes. But it seems the master of this vessel is the suspicious type. Couldn't enable the tracking function from the bridge. Required a special override from the captain's quarters."

"Ah. I see. That's where the 'friends and lovers' part came in. She seduced him, and while he was sleeping off the Goodnight Kiss, she enabled the tracking function."

"Weren't you listening to yourself? She _wasn't _able to."

"Huh. Wonder what's wrong with the guy?" Boromiro and Anatoly shook their heads in synchrony, as they tried to imagine what sort of freighter captain could resist the charms of a female agent who was a trained seductress.

"Maybe he's sly," Anatoly suggested.

A thought occurred to Boromiro. "Maybe he's married."

The two young date-deprived single men considered this possibility for a moment—a man who committed himself to one partner, and stuck to his vows no matter the temptation—before dismissing it out of hand. They shook their heads in synchrony over this unlikely scenario. "Nah."

"Anyway, it seems he didn't fall for her charms. She got interrupted. So what we've been seeing is the piggyback signal. The ship only sends its position when someone aboard uses the cortex."

"Well, I don't see why that's a problem. Crew of, what, four? And passengers. Somebody's bound to be waving somebody, or watching a cortex show, or doing a search, or just checking their mail, pretty often."

"Seems this crew isn't a very chatty bunch," Anatoly continued, as if he knew all about it. "And maybe they don't watch the soaps."

"Got drama enough of their own aboard, do they? Self-made entertainment?"

Anatoly agreed. Sometimes Boromiro wasn't a complete 二百五 èrbǎiwǔ. He observed, "They haven't made but a few waves."

"Still, it's enough to get the picture of where they are." Boromiro enlarged the screen that tracked the Firefly's progress, and added a projection of their trajectory in bright blue. "Headed straight towards Bernadette."

. . .

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glossary

天啊 tiān ā [god]

薄情 Bóqíng [inconstant]

花心 huāxīn [fickle]

外心 wàixīn [unfaithful]

烂鱼臭 làn yú chòu [rotten fish-stinking]

亲爱 Qīn'ài [darling, beloved, dear]

代號 Dài Hào [Code name]

二百五 èrbǎiwǔ [idiot]

* * *

_Thanks for your comments...on Zoe, Mal, Inara, the Blue Hands wannabes, or anything else related to this story._


	25. Chapter 25

Ends with a Horse, Part 12a

_Mal tells Inara a folktale from Shadow_

* * *

_A/N: This chapter's a little longer than usual...I didn't want to break up the folktale._

* * *

They couldn't look for malware twenty-four hours a day. Despite Simon's insight that River suspected Saffron of having installed a trojan horse, they still hadn't found the problem. It did, at least, give them a notion of what to look for.

Mal was in his bunk running a system diagnostic on his personal cortex screen. He was by now completely convinced that Saffron's appearance in his bunk had to do with installing the malware. The code she had dropped in his bed seemed to corroborate this idea. Passwords or access codes, perhaps. Still, having the code didn't help much if they didn't know where she'd used it. He was just about ready to give up in frustration when Inara tapped on his open hatch.

"Mal, may I come in?"

"Of course, darlin'; you're always welcome." He watched in appreciation of her lovely figure as she descended the ladder.

Things had settled in between the two of them. Now that he was looking, he wondered how he had missed the signs of pregnancy in Inara before. The emotional volatility should have tipped him off. She went from laughing to tears to anger quite easily. Even though those elements had always been present in her personality (well maybe not the tears—Inara didn't cry much, or at least she didn't use to) now it was like everything was writ in bold letters, larger size.

"Have you found out what Saffron did?" she asked, as she stepped over and began massaging his shoulders.

"Still don't know." He smiled at her in appreciation, as the knots in his shoulder began to relax. "It's clear she was logged onto my cortex screen, but what she did here, that she couldn't do from the bridge, I don't know. I still haven't found any software that I don't recognize."

"Are you sure she was installing software? What if she was snooping in your accounts, or modifying files that already exist on your cortex unit?"

"Could be," Mal considered. "I already turned my bunk inside out and upside down, searching, in case she took something or planted a bug or booby trap."

"Did she?"

"Not that I've found. Those are good notions you had there, Inara. If that code paper she had was passwords, maybe she used them to access my private accounts and files. Though I don't know how she woulda come by my personal passwords. Or why she'd write 'em in a code I can't even read."

"Could you tell if she did access your files?"

He sighed and rubbed his hands through his hair. "Don't know. This ain't really my area of expertise."

"Why don't you get someone who does have the expertise to go through it?"

"River?"

"She does seem to have some talents in cortex-hacking. But no, actually I meant Ip. He's got quite a lot of training in instrumentation and programming. You know he designed most of the scientific instruments in his little crate of tech cargo himself, and he most definitely wrote the software for them all."

"I didn't know that, actually."

"You should talk to him more."

Mal pursed his lips. "Maybe I should. It's just, whenever I do, seems like he ends up asking me all these uncomfortable questions. Always wants to know about Shadow and Miranda. He's just relentless as a chorus of singin' cicadas with his questions."

"He can be rather relentless," she agreed, as she settled down on the bed and patted the space beside her. "But he also loves to talk. If you just ask _him_ a few questions, then settle down to listen, he'll tell you everything you want to know."

"And then some. Man could talk a hind leg off a donkey." Mal settled in next to her, bumping her shoulder playfully. "Maybe I should try asking him. It's just…" He just wasn't sure how far to trust Ip. He was reluctant to give the man access to his personal cortex screen. "You know, I think I've had about enough software and hardware for tonight. Could use a break from trying to figure out what River meant with this 'What begins with an apple ends with a horse' business."

"You've tried asking her directly?"

"I have. She still gets all loopy and squirrelly when I push it."

"I thought she seemed a little more put together lately. Improving since Saffron left the ship."

"Hmm," he agreed. "She's got her head on straight when it comes to flyin' the ship. But explaining what's goin' on in that brainpan of hers is still more difficult than opening a Chinese puzzle box. And she keeps talkin' on about 'ends with a horse.' Still can't make head nor tail of it."

"It certainly can be difficult to sort out what she means with all her references." Inara snuggled into Mal's side, getting comfortable. "I'm still trying to figure out one that she was telling me a few days ago."

He cocked his head, with a little smile. _Maybe I can help? _he queried with a look.

Inara understood exactly what he meant, and began her story. "River was telling me…well, I think it was a myth, about the god of love, Angus, and a woman who was turned into a swan, named Caer Ibor-something."

"Oh, you mean the story of Angus and Carr," Mal responded easily.

"You know what she was talking about?"

"Sure. Only Angus weren't no god of love, he was just an ordinary fella. River musta been feedin' you some kinda 废话 fèihuà there." He stopped for a moment, as he wondered how River knew the tale. That girl seemed to have no limit to the odd bits of information what collected in her mind. Like a magpie, she was. Gorram, still thinking of River as some kinda bird.

"You know this story then?"

"Absolutely," Mal stated. "Every kid on Shadow heard the story of Angus and Carr. I guess it was…well, you could call it a folktale, I suppose. Carr Filkins, what taught me wilderness survival skills, she was even named for Carr in the tale. Better person for reading nature you never saw. She could spot a bitty twig sticking outta the ground, what nobody else woulda noticed, and she'd stop and dig out a sunroot or a prairie turnip—they're right tasty, when you roast 'em, though you'd never guess it, the way they look. She could find wild foods and live off the land like nobody else I ever saw. That winter in New Kasmir, if I hadn't known some of what she taught me, we woulda starved, rations were so short. 'Course, if she was good at tracking vegetables, she weren't a patch on Terry Chang, who could track animals like nobody's business. Terry, she could tell you—"

"Terry Chang was a woman?"

"Sure. Why wouldn't she be?" He regarded her quizzically. "Surely you don't believe tracking skills are gender-specific? Don't gotta be a man to be a good tracker, darlin'. Terry weren't so good at the shooting, but hunting parties always wanted her along, on account of her tracking skills. Between her, and Carr, and Murdoch Harbatkin and Hank Blodgett—well, they're the ones what taught me most of what I know about outdoorsmanship."

"So what's the story of Angus and Carr?" Inara asked, getting him back on track.

"You want the full deal?"

She nodded.

"Okay," he said, settling in to tell the tale. "Angus was this fella. He fell in love with Carr, what got turned into a swan…"

"Wait a minute. Was she already a swan, or did he fall in love and then she turned into a swan?"

"Alright, I guess I better tell you about Carr first. Carr was a maiden, beautiful and good, but when she was young she got a notion somehow that she weren't all that beautiful after all, and she had doubts about her own goodness—I mean, who doesn't? But she had no reason to doubt herself, no real reason anyhow. I reckon maybe she had the kind of parents what told her she weren't good enough or something, made her doubtful. Anyways, she wanted to be better than she was, so she went to this old crone—"

"An evil old crone?"

"Well, no, not exactly evil. Evil is more—"

"An old witch?"

"No, not a witch, though she did have magical powers. An old crone which made a bargain with Carr. There's lots of old crones in Shadow folktales," he said in an aside. The reminiscences had awoken Mal's Shadow accent, which grew more folksy as he told the story. "I reckon not so much a witch, more of a wise woman, with magical skills. Anyways, the crone showed her how to be beautiful and young-looking always, how to please people with her ways. Reckon that took care of them parents that thought she weren't good enough."

"There must have been a catch." There always was, in folktales, when you made a bargain like that.

"'Course there was a catch. She would always be beautiful and young and graceful, but she could only be a woman one day a year, on All Saints' Day. Rest of the time she was a swan."

Inara looked at him, her expression quite serious.

"Time come, Carr begun to regret her bargain. She was beautiful and graceful and all, but she had to spend most of her life as a swan, and live with the swans. And people came and saw her, and said as how she was beautiful and graceful and such, but all they saw was a swan. They didn't see her as a woman no more. And since the crone had given her eternal youth, Carr was lookin' at a long future of people lookin' and admiring and never knowing what she truly was underneath all them feathers.

"That's where Angus come into the story. He happened upon the swan lake late one night, on All Hallow's Eve, and saw the magical transformation when Carr turned into a woman. He barely caught a glimpse before she was swallowed up in the mist. He went on home, but he couldn't get the swan woman outta his mind. Dreamed about her every night. I think he musta known something fishy was goin' on, 'cause ordinarily a man don't go about finding a girlfriend that way. And he oughtta known better than to mess with some magical 废话 fèihuà like that—like to get transformed himself, you know. But this is a folktale, not real life, so of course he persisted. Went out lookin' for the swan woman again and again. Every time he saw a swan, he looked past the fine plumage on the surface, trying to see into the heart of her, to see if he could find the swan woman of his dreams. And of course, thinkin' on her so much, he fell deeply in love with her." As he recounted the folktale, Mal's Shadow accent had grown more and more pronounced, and by now he was in full swing. "Well, the years went on, and at last come a time when Angus come to a lake filled with hundreds of swans. And he looked, right to the heart, and he seen right through the borrowed feathers of the swan woman, and knew she was the woman of his dreams, underneath it all. Chose her right outta a lake full of swans."

"And love conquered all," Inara guessed. "His seeing her for what she truly was broke the spell? And they lived happily ever after."

"No," he answered. "It was more complicated than that. You can't expect to reverse years' worth of magical spells just by fallin' in love or kissin' a frog or something. No, you see, now he knew which swan was really the woman he loved, he followed her. She weren't so sure she loved _him_, I suppose, so she didn't make it easy. Flew off to different parts, he had a devil of a time keeping close to her. He waited until the next All Hallow's Eve, when she transformed into a woman, and for that night and day he courted her."

"Courted her?" Inara asked, still amused by Mal's quaint expression.

"Yeah. Told her he loved her, showed her how he loved her, made her know that he loved her for who she was, her true self on the inside, and not just for her beauty and youth and grace what everyone else could see."

Inara was very moved.

"Then, at midnight, it was time for her to change back into a swan."

"That doesn't seem fair! Couldn't they break the magic spell?"

"They did. But they had to use trickery. You see, the crone objected."

"So the old crone was still around."

"Sure was. How else do ya think the magic spell persisted? The crone said they had to prove that their love was forever, not just for a day and a night."

"But they'd only had one day and one night."

"That's right. And that's where the old language came in handy."

"The old language?"

"Yeah, it's…actually, I don't know much about it myself. But there were some oldtimers on Shadow what knew bits and phrases of the old language—mostly cuss words and greetings, far as I could tell. Reckon it came from Earth-that-was, probably some obscure language that just about died out before the exodus anyways. Well, it seems in the old language, there ain't no word for 'a'—y'know, you can say, 'the day' but you can't say 'a day'—the way you say 'a day' is just the same as sayin' 'day'. So Angus and Carr—well, they could prove they had loved for _a_ day and _a_ night, which was, in the old language 'day and night'—in other words, for all time. Forever."

Inara was so moved she couldn't speak.

"So it was just a matter of semantics," Mal concluded. "So how was it River come to mention this tale?"

To Mal's utter amazement, Inara threw herself into his arms, kissing him and murmuring, "I love you, Mal. I love you, I love you, I love you," over and over and over again. He didn't ask any more questions.

_I know_, he thought, and held her tight.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

废话 fèihuà [nonsense]

* * *

_Author note: This chapter refers heavily to an incident in What Begins with an Apple, Part 12b (Chapter 24) if you're interested. Also, the "old language" is Gaelic, where the phrase "Là agus oidhche" means both "a day and a night" or "day and night."_


	26. Chapter 26

Ends with a Horse, Parts 12b and 13a

_Ip cooks General Tso Chicken, and Simon makes an announcement_

* * *

Ip was in the kitchen…_galley_, he corrected himself. He still wasn't completely used to all the shipboard terminology, and tended to speak of _front _and _back_ instead of _forward _and _aft;_ _left_ and _right_ instead of _port_ and _starboard;_ and of course it had taken him aback the first few times he'd heard Zoe refer to the _head_ instead of the bathroom. Restroom. Washroom. Lavatory. WC. Toilet. Facilities. Oh, hell, maybe _head_ was easier to remember after all.

It was his cook day, and he was feeling creative. They were on their way to Bernadette, and thoughts of home brought memories of his mother's cooking to mind. お母さん Okāsan, despite her busy career as an entomology professor at Harcliffe University, loved to cook. Most of what she cooked reflected her Japanese heritage, but she had a few Chinese-style favorites, and that's what Ip had in mind this time.

General Tso Chicken. Well, okay, General Tso Chicken-style Protein. The key to making molded protein palatable, Ip found, was in the sauces and the style of preparation. He'd been warned about the abysmal quality of the food available aboard most spaceships before he embarked on his "sabbatical," so he'd packed some pantry essentials into his hand luggage: sesame oil, chili paste, dehydrated onions, garlic, ginger, lemon and orange zest, and one of his secret ingredients: Filipino-style banana ketchup.

Serenity was well-supplied with soy sauce, and cooking oil was also available. Ip found that if he got creative with the egg-style protein packets, he could make up for the deficiency of fresh eggs; and although wheat flour and cornstarch were in short supply, a little therapeutic time spent pounding and grinding with an old-fashioned mortar and pestle converted the cheap millet that formed Serenity's primary carbohydrate source into a palatable flour.

So he set about mixing egg-style protein, water, and millet flour into a batter and flavored it with sesame oil. Coating the chunks of chicken-style protein with batter and deep-frying them, then smothering them with spicy sauce, took care of the problem of blandness that too often afflicted a diet based on molded protein.

It wasn't long before the appetizing smells began drawing the crew toward the dining room. Jayne, as usual, was first and foremost.

"Mmm. Smells good. Whatcha cookin' there, Doc 'Noyman?"

"General Tso Chicken."

To Ip's astonishment, Jayne bolted from the dining room and down the hallway toward crew quarters. Before Ip could even open his mouth, Jayne had plunged down the ladder of his bunk and shut the hatch.

"Now what in the worlds was that all about?"

"Smells good, Ip," the Captain commented, entering the dining room in his turn. "What was _what_ all about?"

"Jayne just bolted to his bunk and shut the hatch," Ip said, turning the pieces in the wok as they turned golden brown and crispy. Mal gave a shrug.

"That's good," Simon said, as he joined them. "Let's just hope he keeps it that way. Have you smelled the stench exuding from his quarters?"

"I live in the same corridor," Mal said drily.

"It's unsanitary," Simon continued. "He's never been a model of exemplary hygiene, but this is worse than ever. I think something's gone septic. Shouldn't you—"

Mal was quick to reply. "I won't have no truck with cleanin' Jayne's bunk. Man's gotta take care of it hisownself."

"He's been acting a bit off, if you ask me," Zoe inserted, joining the conversation. "Not just the awful 腐臭 fǔchòu smell. He's been playin' music all the time. I can hear it through the bulkhead." Her bunk was next to Jayne's, and everyone nodded in sympathy. "Same gorram music wave, over and over and over again."

"The Juggling Geese, isn't it?" Inara asked, nodding in sympathy. "That's his favorite band."

"It ain't bad music," Zoe continued. "It's just, he never shuts it off."

"Not even when he's sleeping?"

"Well, yes, for sleeping, but it's back on again before the crack of day-cycle, Captain."

"What's on at the crack of day-cycle?" Kaylee asked brightly, as she joined the others. "Smells real good Ip. Do ya need a hand?"

As Ip finished cooking the sauce, the others set the table. Inara, giving Ip a smile, carried the pot of jasmine tea to the table and began to pour.

"Jayne's music. All the time."

"Nothin' wrong with my music," Jayne called as he re-entered the dining room. "It's The Juggling Geese, and they're the shiniest band this side of Boros. The drummer and the lead singer are—"

"Kung Pao Chicken or General Tso Chicken?" River asked of the room in general, giving Jayne a hard stare as she drifted up to the table and took a seat.

"General Tso Chicken tonight," Ip informed her. "But if you like, I'll make Kung Pao Chicken next time."

"Witch," Jayne muttered under his breath, as he sat down at the table.

"Yeah, but she's _our_ witch," Mal responded. "Pass the chicken, Jayne."

. . .

Simon chose a relatively quiet moment towards the end of the meal, and called for everybody's attention. He wasn't completely comfortable with everyone staring at him in silence, even though he'd brought about the situation on purpose. It made him slightly nervous, and he reverted to the stylized speech formulas he had been taught in his public speaking class on Osiris. "I thought I'd take this opportunity, considering that everyone is gathered here…" Simon began, in a manner suitable for making a formal announcement.

"Pompous ass," Jayne muttered under his breath. "Doc, I know you an' I reached a kind of an imp-ass, de-taunt, whaddaya-call-'em here, but can you just—"

"_Détente,"_ Simon corrected, unable to help himself. _"Impasse."_

"Gorram pompous ass." Jayne kept up a steady stream of antagonistic and incomprehensible grumbling. He still couldn't stand it when the pompous ass stood on his hind legs and pontiffilated—pontuffocated—_talked_.

"諸君 Zhūjūn," Simon declaimed formally, continuing his prepared speech. He paused to glare at Jayne again and added, "and the rest of you—"

"喂 Wèi!" Jayne objected. "Just what do you mean by—"

"Let the man speak his piece," Mal commanded, although he inwardly wished Simon would skip the preliminaries and just cut to the chase.

Simon cleared his throat and continued. "Kaylee and I have an announcement to make. We—"

"We're gonna get married!" Kaylee exclaimed, unable to contain herself. She held out her hand and displayed her ring, a bright smile on her face.

Half the crew immediately started congratulating the happy couple, while half of them looked at Mal, waiting for him to raise the inevitable objection. "Congratulations, Simon," Mal said, defying all expectation. "妹妹 Mèimei, you'll be a happy woman."

Simon and Kaylee accepted handshakes and hugs from the more demonstrative members of the crew. Then things began to settle down a little. Simon exchanged a series of looks with Kaylee, and spoke again. "And, we might as well also inform you—"

"We're gonna have a baby!" Kaylee interrupted again.

"Well, that was fast," Jayne remarked.

But everyone else was silent, watching Mal for the inevitable explosion. It didn't come. Instead, he raised his mug. "To the happy couple," he toasted, and took a swig of his coffee.

Everyone remained silent and edgy. Mal still wasn't exploding, and they were unable to read his body language. Even Zoe wasn't sure what he was thinking. "Got work to be done, people," the Captain said, and he pushed his chair back, stood up, and carried his coffee mug off to the bridge.

"You two are in deep 狗屎 gǒushǐ," Jayne remarked. "Cap's gonna explode. He'd throw you out the airlock now, if he didn't need a mechanic and a medic so bad. You watch, he'll find a reason to throw you off the ship at the next stop."

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

お母さん Okāsan [Mom (Japanese)]

腐臭 fǔchòu [rotten, putrid]

諸君 Zhūjūn [Ladies and gentlemen]

喂 Wèi [Hello! Hey]

妹妹 Mèimei [Little sister]

狗屎 gǒushǐ [shit]

* * *

_Did I fool anyone with my teaser line? Did you really think I'd let Ip cook Jayne's chicken? And what about Mal's non-explosion? What's going on?_


	27. Chapter 27

Ends with a Horse, Part 13b

_Zoe and Inara take Mal to task_

* * *

Mal felt the force of Zoe's eyes on him as he went systematically through the standard checks—nav, propulsion, and helm—and settled into the pilot's chair to review the flight plan in preparation for their entrance into controlled airspace.

"What?" he asked, which provoked a heated glare in response. "Why does everyone assume I'm gonna explode if folks on this boat want to get married?"

Zoe snorted and rolled her eyes, and even though it was entirely unnecessary to speak the words aloud, she answered pointedly, "Because you did it before, sir." She remembered it perfectly well. When she and Wash told Mal they intended to stop by the office of the local Justice of the Peace and get married after the drop on Salisbury, he'd just about shot through the roof. It was as bad—or maybe even worse—as it had been when he'd first discovered that Zoe and Wash were spending the night in each others' bunks. He'd ranted and stormed about interlopers, complications, and divided loyalties, he'd argued and opposed, and finally, in an absurd and desperate attempt to hold back the inevitable tide, he'd actually pulled rank and _ordered_ Zoe not to marry Wash. "I distinctly remember being _ordered_—"

"I'm never gonna live that down, am I?" Mal sighed, as he tapped in the approval codes on the nav planner.

"Nope."

"Just for the record, I ain't against children, neither," Mal added, with a nod at Zoe's gravid belly. "Not at all."

Zoe harrumphed again, recollecting how Mal had put up barriers and constructed obstacles every time she had so much as hinted that she and Wash might want to start a family. It hadn't stopped her, but coupled with Wash's initial reluctance to begin a family when their lifestyle was so unsettled, it had certainly hindered the process. She wasn't about to let Mal off the hook so easily. "So, you're ready to turn this boat into a flyin' nursery, then, sir?"

"You bet," Mal answered, giving it right back to her. "Which room you figure for the playroom? I reckon the passenger lounge, and one of the passenger dorms for the nursery. Gotta child-proof all the lockers, and put all the weapons and ammo under lock and key. Install chicken wire on the railings and put up baby gates at the stairs and ladders. Conjure I should hire a nanny next planetfall. Which do you figure 'd do a better job—Core-bred nanny or Rim-world nanny? Core-bred 'd do better at teachin' manners and deportment, but a Rim-world nanny 'd be more likely to have the kind of experience we need for our work. Maybe a combo nanny/gunfighter. Whaddaya say? Figure we could—"

"Shut _up_, sir," Zoe rejoined with a smile, as she punched his shoulder.

. . .

It was difficult, if not impossible, to live down his reputation, Mal found. First there was Kaylee's fear of his reaction when she acknowledged her pregnancy to him, as if he were some kind of 混球 húnqiú who would throw her out on her ear for that reason. Come to think of it, even Zoe, who weren't no shrinking violet, had backed him into a corner when disclosing her pregnancy—forcing him to acknowledge that he owed her a debt on account of Wash's sacrifice before telling him. Zoe had taken him to task over Simon and Kaylee's situation, and now it was Inara's turn.

"You're upset about Simon and Kaylee, but you don't want to talk about it."

"Why's everyone think I'm upset about it?" Mal picked up a painted fan from Inara's shelf of beautiful things, and began flipping it open and shut.

"You've internalized your anger, instead of expressing it." Inara gently removed the fan from his hands, opened it carefully, and replaced it back on its display stand.

"Don't got no anger about it," Mal shrugged. "I'm happy as a clam."

She took his hand and led him to the sofa. "Let it out, Mal."

Her touch sent a thrill up his arm. "Let what out?" he asked, but he allowed himself to be guided to the seat next to her.

"Denial is no way to deal with your feelings, Mal," she said, stroking his hand softly, "not in the long term."

_Ooh,_ it felt so _good_, what she was doing to his hand. Almost distracted him from what they were talking about. _What was it? Oh, yeah…_ "Inara, this ain't denial."

"You just denied that you're in denial."

_Sheesh._ "This ain't denial," he denied. "I should know, I'm an expert at denial. Real good at repression, too. Not so bad at displacement and acting out, neither." Mal rather enjoyed Inara's somewhat stupefied expression as he rattled off the terminology, but the fact was, he wasn't so completely unaware of his psychological issues as the others assumed. Sure, he'd engaged less-than-ideal defense mechanisms to cope with what anyone had to acknowledge was a rather high level of stress. (Try being beat upon in an Alliance prison for stress.) Independent Command didn't have no veterans' medical benefits, so until Simon shipped aboard, his only option was to read up about his problems on the cortex and try to deal with them himself.

Denial had been his only pathological choice. Acting out and passive aggression were his immature defense mechanisms of choice. Neurotic defense mechanisms he had employed many a time. Displacement, very commonly. Dissociation—helped him get through the war. Not many other ways to cope with seeing your friends shot dead next to you while you got a need to carry on doing what you're doing—such as for example fighting a battle. Isolation—absolutely necessary to deal with the kinds of trauma he'd seen. Regression—shoot first, ask questions later. Repression—oh, now, that was one of his favorites. And withdrawal, another one that he employed on a regular basis, holed up in his bunk or on the bridge. And, honestly, he used the mature defense mechanisms the most often. Anticipation. Others called it negative thinking, but hell, he'd been around long enough to know that anything that could go wrong, would go wrong. Realistic planning for future discomfort? He counted on it. No matter how bad things got, they could always get worse. Humor. Yep, used that one in spades. Sublimation. Didn't think about it so much, but he guessed he used that defense mechanism pretty often. Fate dealt him 牛屎 niú shǐ, and he turned it into something noble, or at least something that wasn't complete and utter 牛屎 niú shǐ. (Inara could have told him that this was one of the qualities that made him such an effective leader. He himself was not aware of just how effectively he used sublimation.) "Anyhow, this ain't denial. I am over that. I seen this coming a long time ago."

"Really?" she asked, intrigued by this new idea. "When?"

"At least two weeks ago," he answered proudly.

Amusement showed in Inara's face as she waited for Mal to elaborate.

"Gave Simon the money for the ring."

"Let me guess. Right after you told him to marry her, or visit the airlock. Right?"

Mal harrumphed. "That ain't exactly how I—"

"Oho, so you phrased it more delicately than that, did you?"

"Woman, that is not—"

"Kiss me, Mal."

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

混球 húnqiú [jerk]

牛屎 niú shǐ [shit]

* * *

_Mal sure has a reputation, and both Inara and Zoe gave him a hard time. Has he turned over a new leaf? Your thoughts are welcome._


	28. Chapter 28

Ends with a Horse, Parts 13c and 14a

_A visit with Kaylee in the engine room, and some revelations at the dinner table_

* * *

Pregnant or not, morning sickness or not, there was work to be done, and directly after the meal, Kaylee headed to the engine room to do it. There was always something to be done on an older boat like Serenity.

Most boats this old didn't fly near so well. Fact was, most boats this old didn't fly at all. Most boats this old were either relegated to the scrap heap, or mounted in permanent display at a museum. It was the Captain's tender love and care that got her flyin' again, and Kaylee's tender love and care that kept her flyin'. And Wash's, too.

Kaylee swallowed past the lump in her throat and dashed away the tears that formed at the thought of Wash. Others didn't see it much, but Kaylee and Wash had shared a special bond, the love of flying machines, and she missed his presence so much. Cap'n mighta loved Serenity most, but it was Kaylee who took care of her, and Wash who coaxed the best out of the ol' girl. When they were sittin' dirtside, and the others were out on a job, oftentimes Wash and Kaylee would spend their bit of downtime cookin' up ways to make Serenity fly better, smoother, smarter and cheaper. Didn't no one else but Wash appreciate the mechanics of Serenity like Kaylee did.

Budget was always tight, so almost every one of their improvements was jury-rigged and improvised. Wash would make an offhand comment, such as for example that he wished he could spin on a dime, or go to full burn in atmo without the blow-back fryin' 'em all alive. Kaylee would think on it for a while, and when she come up with somethin', she'd talk it over with Wash and find out he'd been thinkin' on it, too. Between them, they come up with ways to get some real maneuverability out of Serenity, makin' her the smoothest ride from here to Boros and beyond. The others mighta loved the boat, but only Wash could match Kaylee for techno-geeky appreciation, and when it was just the two of them, many's the time Kaylee and Wash got up to a regular geek-fest.

It started simply because Wash had nothin' to do but hang around and worry while Mal and Zoe and Jayne went out on a job. To distract him, Kaylee often diverted him with mechanical projects—installing special features, jiggering the systems to get that little bit of extra maneuverability or lift. They both enjoyed these times when their inner geeks came out to play. And it kept Wash's mind off the possibility of his wife returning shot or injured.

In this way Serenity had acquired a large number of special modifications. Would've voided the warranty for sure, had there been one. Kaylee had disrupted many of the standard features of the '03, improved them if she did say so herself. It began with her removal of the reg couple, very first time she set foot on the boat. Kinda useless piece of equipment, anyhow. Just tended to gum up the works when it got tacked—which it _always_ did, on a regular basis. Could spend hours just flushing the gorram thing clean. Better just to plug the g-line straight into the pin-lock.

Out here in the Black, on a shoestring budget, you had to improvise, and you had to make do with the parts on hand, because the Captain just couldn't afford all kinds of whatnot. Wash was a bit of a 天才 tiāncái when it come to wiring, and with her own skills at welding, there weren't much they couldn't do when they put their minds to it. Nonetheless, she was real glad that the licensing inspectors hadn't never took a good look at Serenity's engine—she'd modified the Trace almost beyond recognition, and it probably wouldn't meet standards nor pass inspection—even though it now worked one helluva lot better than it had when she first come aboard. Inspectors and regulators didn't never appreciate experimentation and innovation. Neither did government agencies, and Kaylee knew that it was pure luck that Serenity hadn't failed her inspection when the Captain renewed her registration back on Persephone after the whole Miranda episode. They'd made the repairs at a Fed base (thanks to the Operative decidin' to help 'em out) and the regulators had just _assumed_ that it was Fed-certified spacecraft mechanics what had made all the repairs. Ticked her off to no end at the time to be done out of credit for her own hard work, but she kept her mouth shut and the paperwork passed through without a hitch.

Wash had confessed to her that he had dreams of flyin' again like a fighter pilot—pretty wacky idea for a man who flew a mid-bulk transport—and yet, with all the changes they'd made, the pie-in-the-sky dream had become, in some respects, a reality. With her know-how and Wash's suggestions, they'd modified the inertial drive, the press regulator, the helm coupling, even the grav boot, to get some real maneuverability out of this boat. Weren't every Firefly could pull a Crazy Ivan. And few transport ships of any kind could fly canyonlands like the ice chasms of St Albans.

Cap'n had forewarned her they'd be bot-flown in atmo in Bernadette, and Kaylee now had to undo some of her modifications, so that the flight bot could work. Kaylee picked up her wrench and lay down on the creeper. She scooted under the slowly rotating fins of the Trace and fitted the socket onto the coupling. Actually had to _re-install _that gorram reg couple, 'cause the flight bot relied on it to regulate the engine. Was gonna take a bit of retrofitting to make Serenity behave like a regular ol' '03 for the flight bot. Well, it oughtta work. An' if'n it didn't, there were ways to override the bot and start fresh.

. . .

As they approached Bernadette, Ip felt increasing pressure to try to draw the Captain out about Miranda. If he really meant to leave the ship when they got to Bernadette, he needed to get to the bottom of this matter without further delay. Even if he didn't leave the ship, their stop in Bernadette was the perfect opportunity to take the Captain to meet Professor Rao, his thesis advisor and mentor. If _he _couldn't persuade the Captain to talk about Miranda, perhaps Dr Rao, with her natural warmth and her persuasive manner, could convince him to describe what he saw there, and if they were lucky, maybe he'd recount conditions on Shadow in the years preceding the catastrophic terraforming failure.

How differently things had gone from what he'd anticipated! When he first came aboard Serenity, Ip's idea was that he'd simply ask about Miranda and the Captain would tell him what he'd seen when he visited the place. Ip would ask a few follow-up questions, incorporate the answers into his researches, and write up a paper.

If only it were that simple.

It turned out that any time he so much as hinted at his interest in Miranda the Captain would either divert the conversation or shut it down, while overt questions made the whole crew draw into a tight protective circle with Ip on the outside.

Ip was a good observer of facts. He wasn't so good a reading people. But if he had to give an assessment of the situation, he would say that whatever it was that had occurred on Miranda, it had drawn the tight-knit crew of Serenity even closer together.

Ip's plan lacked subtlety. It was blunt and direct. But the Captain did not like complications. He did not like it when people said one thing and meant another. So, towards the end of a good meal of Kung Pao chicken-style protein, with all the crew but River gathered round the table, replete and relaxed, Ip simply said it.

"Captain, I want to talk to you about Miranda."

Everybody froze. Ip watched the Captain, who held his chopsticks midway between his plate and his mouth—watched as a shield dropped into place in the Captain's eyes, watched the man close off, watched the others circle the wagons. But this time Ip wasn't completely shut outside the circle. His experience with River on Beaumonde, nearly getting killed by the Blue Hands, left a window open for him.

It was Jayne who spoke. "_Nobody_ wants to talk about Miranda."

Ip looked at Jayne, then all around the table. The pieces fell into place, and though he spoke softly, he was confident. "You've _all_ been there. All of you." Simon had told him about a desperate battle with Reavers on a remote world. So that was it—they'd been through a battle together, faced a common enemy, pulled together and bonded—on Miranda. "我的天啊 Wǒ de tiān ā. You fought the Reavers on Miranda." Had the Reavers chased them to Miranda? Just what had happened there?

They were staring at him, with looks that ranged from shell-shocked to hostile, as each person's face reflected their reaction to recalled trauma. Kaylee and Simon drew closer together. Zoe looked profoundly pained. Jayne's face reflected his heartfelt concern for her—made all the more noticeable because Ip hadn't imagined that Jayne could display such feeling. Mal and Inara shared a look of distress with each other, then the Captain looked grim. No one spoke.

_That_ part, at least, Ip had anticipated. Looking at the Captain, but speaking to them all, he said, "Well, I'll lead the way. Share my confidences first. Then you can judge how much you want to share yours."

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

天才 tiāncái [genius]

我的天啊 Wǒ de tiān ā [Oh my god]

* * *

_Hope you like Kaylee' reminiscences. I can envision her and Wash geeking out about the ship while the others are off on a job. Regarding Ip: it's showtime. More in the next chapter. Your feedback is appreciated._


	29. Chapter 29

Ends with a Horse, Part 14b

_In which we find out more about Miranda_

* * *

Ip shifted in his seat. What he was about to do violated all the non-disclosure agreements he had signed when he left his corporate job. But they had violated that trust first, hadn't they? When they sent a corporate assassin—Bill—to kill him. He didn't owe Blue Sun anything anymore.

"When I left Blue Sun," he began, "I signed a non-disclosure agreement. I had access to some sensitive information in the course of my job there—a low-level security clearance. No major state secrets, no big secret corporate plans, but access to insider information that Blue Sun didn't want its competitors to know about. But you aren't a company in competition with Blue Sun, and I'm beginning to think that _you_, of all people in the 'Verse, have a right to know.

"I think you're all aware that Blue Sun's research facility on Bernadette is the main site for terraforming research for the entire corporation. All the terraforming operations in the 'Verse that are run by Blue Sun—and that's most of them—come under the consideration of our division in one way or another, whether it's to consult our expertise about recommended parameters for a prospective terraforming operation, or to have our group analyze what went wrong in case of mishap."

"Did they actually have the gall to call what happened at Miranda a 'mishap'?" Simon inquired with a scathing edge to his voice. He was ready to say much more, but Mal shut him up with a look.

"Let's hear what the man has to say," the Captain directed, taking control of the proceedings.

"So one day, a meeting of our section's scientific staff was called. Our group supervisor explained that a new look was being taken at the terraforming disaster that had occurred about ten years prior on Miranda."

"Weren't no terraforming disaster," Jayne inserted. "Air's breathable, gravity's earth-norm. Only thing wrong was just that Pax 狗屎 gǒushǐ they put into the atmo conditioners."

"闭嘴 Bìzuǐ," the Captain ordered. "Ip has the floor."

"A scientific report was issued shortly after the disaster occurred, of course," Ip continued, "before I started working for Blue Sun. Apparently some members of Parliament were calling for a fresh look. Blue Sun having been the company responsible for terraforming Miranda in the first place, it fell to our department to revise the report.

"Obviously, some parts of a report like that are simply political gobbledegook designed to appease various factions of Parliament, but the technical aspects were referred to the Terraforming Research Division. Of course, high management would be the ones actually writing the report, but they needed input from the researchers. Our group supervisor then shared with us a number of observations that needed to be explained, and asked us to speculate as to possible mechanisms, hypotheses to be tested, and plausible theories that could account for the data.

"I was given a subset of data to look at, and the task of explaining reports of anomalous earthquake patterns preceding the disaster. I want to stress that none of this data was from my own observation—I never had a chance to take data on Miranda myself—"

"'Cause you'd get et by Reavers if you tried," Jayne asserted.

"—nor did I see the raw data feed from the instruments and sensors that took the measurements. The data I worked with had already been processed. I was supposed to look for patterns, and come up with a plausible explanation for them." Ip drew breath. The next part was critical.

"I wrote up an analysis, and sent it off, thinking little of it."

"Little of it! That calamity!"

"Zoe," Ip explained patiently, his sympathy evident in his voice, "it was just one of dozens of terraforming analyses I worked on while at Blue Sun. Terraforming mishaps are much more common than you'd think. It's just that very few of them have catastrophic consequences."

"Catastrophic," Kaylee echoed. "I'll say."

"Some months later, I was called to my supervisor's office. Not Dr Das, my direct supervisor, but several levels up—Dr Clarke. When I arrived, a draft of the Miranda report was lying on her desk. I figured she was going to ask me about it, so I began reading the section that related to my work.

"Well, I could soon see that the section I had worked on had problems. I was beginning to take notes when Dr Clarke returned." Ip remembered it well—details that only later began to seem significant. How the supervisor's greeting _("Dr Neumann! You're here already!")_ while seemingly benign, had seemed more startled than was warranted by the mere fact of his sitting in her office reading a report he had been specifically invited up to see, or so he thought. He remembered how so much of what Dr Clarke then said to him had seemed inconsistent with the situation, and confusing. "I immediately began to point out the problems with the report."

"Don't that just figure," grumbled Jayne, while Simon's lips twitched in a smile. The Captain remained stony-faced.

"As I did so, Dr Clarke's faux jolliness evaporated and she became very guarded. She told me the report was none of my business." At the time, it had astonished him. Had he not been asked to read it? "I objected, telling her that I had contributed to the analysis in the seismological section, and that the report did not accurately reflect my findings. She told me that the purpose of the meeting was about something else entirely, and re-directed the conversation. She seemed pretty miffed that I had brought up objections to the report, so I didn't pursue it."

"Didn't her behavior raise your suspicions?" the Captain asked.

"Well, no, not at the time. I'm quite accustomed to being told to shut up," Ip added, not without humor.

"So the report was buried?" Zoe asked.

"Well, no. The final version of it was presented to Parliament."

"Did you see it then?"

"Yes. It's a matter of public record. I acquired it from the Parliamentary cortex site."

"The report still have problems?"

"It certainly did, Captain. When I read it, I recognized some of the speculative ideas generated by my colleagues, but most of them were not particularly well-supported by evidence. It was frustrating, because so many of the key parts of the explanations were redacted—"

"Rejackted? What's that mean?" Jayne asked, his eyes crossing as Ip's scientific vocabulary flew by him.

"They cut them out, Jayne," Simon explained.

"—redacted for 'reasons of Alliance security'," Ip continued, "and I couldn't see any good security-based reason for the redaction. There was also a frustrating lack of appendices containing raw data, or even the processed data that_ I_ had had access to in creating my analysis.

"The report was puzzling, and Dr Clarke's reaction was confusing, but still I did not attach any special significance to it until several months later, when I saw the Miranda broadwave. It was only then that I realized what the report really was."

"Hogwash," Simon offered.

Ip looked at Simon. "Exactly. The entire report was an attempt to mislead."

"Didn't you do nothin' about it?" Mal asked.

Ip shrugged. "By that time, I had already left my job at Blue Sun. There wasn't anything I could do."

"Just how, exactly, did you come to leave Blue Sun? You never did tell the story of that."

Ip was reluctant to talk about it. He had shared these confidences in order to invite the Captain to do the same, not to have the Captain re-direct the conversation. Deciding more openness was still the best route, he said, "I began to be dissatisfied with my job. The data I dealt with were processed, always one or more steps removed from the raw field data. I was always viewing the terraforming accidents through the filter of one or more scientists who had processed the data before I ever saw it. The work I did involved processing this data further, and coming to conclusions that were expected, never surprising. I longed to see some data that were directly from the source. Unprocessed."

"Or untainted." That was Simon's contribution. Ip looked at him sharply. When had Simon become so cynical? Perhaps it had something to do with finding out that River's supposed school was really an institute for carrying out illegal and unethical experimentation on non-consenting teenagers.

Ip continued with his account. "The work became boring. I wanted to recapture the excitement I felt when I first studied terraforming. I wanted to see the far reaches of the 'Verse. I thought I could do both. So I turned in my resignation."

Only now did Ip remember Dr Clarke's curiously satisfied look when Ip tendered his resignation. _"You'll go on to better things, Ip Neumann,"_ she told him.

. . .

"So you were pushed outta your job, on account of you seein' the holes in this whitewash report on Miranda," Mal stated.

"I resigned," Ip countered. "I wasn't pushed out, or fired, or…" Ip trailed off as he finally realized the meaning of the significant looks his supervisors had passed between them, of the strange feeling he had felt especially in the presence of Dr Clarke, who must have been significantly involved in fabricating the report, of whispers and rumors whose meaning he had utterly failed to comprehend while he was still employed at Blue Sun. And which he might never have comprehended had not fate—or karma—or Brother Chan 'eil Cail—propelled him into the company of Serenity's crew. Ip looked up at the Captain. "I was pushed out of my job, because I had dangerous knowledge of the cover-up of the disaster on Miranda. Only I was led to believe that I had left of my own volition." How naïve he had been!

"Clearly some pretty slick operators work for your old company, Ip." Mal gave a wry half-smile. "You'd think Blue Sun was used to puttin' their own spin on everything and havin' the public accept it, hook, line, and sinker."

Hook, line, and sinker. Ip felt more than ever that he'd been played, betrayed by his former employer. He felt like the 'Verse's biggest fool. Might as well slap a label on his forehead reading, _"Use me. I'm naïve."_

"You said this report was a matter of public record?" the Captain inquired.

Ip nodded.

"And it was presented to all Parliament, by way of explaining why an entire planet of thirty million people suddenly laid down and died?"

"Yes."

"And I s'pose it also explained why thirty thousand people turned Reaver and started terrorizing the 'Verse as a result of their miserable 不要脸的东西 bùyàoliǎn de dōngxi Pax experiment?"

"The report didn't explain that part—though perhaps that was in the redacted portions."

"And the politicians didn't do nothing about it, when they read that hogwash?"

"Only a terraforming expert would know it was hogwash, Captain," Ip smiled thinly. "It was too poor a job to fool an expert, but it could—and apparently _did_—fool most of the politicians in Parliament. When the broadwave came out, most people—members of Parliament included—were taken completely by surprise. It caused quite a firestorm."

A firestorm that Ip remembered very well. The broadwave was seen on all cortex channels, pre-empting regularly scheduled programming. It was re-broadcast and posted everywhere, and the news organizations pounced on it and showed clips and commentary for more than a week. Public outcry was great, and people organized protests on the steps of Parliament. Someone was at fault, and someone would have to pay.

Rumors and speculations abounded. It had been sent by a whistle-blower. It had been sent by a hoaxster. It had been sent by a terrorist cell composed of discontented ex-Browncoats trying to overthrow the government. Parliamentary factions formed and aligned themselves in support of the various theories on the broadwave's truthfulness and origin. Reporters tried to dig up the source of the signal, officials accused each other of negligence and cover-ups, scapegoats were selected, and heads rolled. Some members of Parliament were forced to resign. Others gleefully stepped into their places and took up the reins of power.

When no whistle-blower stepped forward, no hoaxster was uncovered, and no terrorist group made demands, the firestorm subsided. The cantankerous members of the public found something else to become indignant about, and Parliament settled back down into its ordinary state of captious bickering. _The 'Verse wakes up for a spell, then rolls right over and falls back asleep. _ But during that wakeful period, realignments had occurred. The political situation had subtly altered as a result of that Miranda broadwave.

The Captain looked strangely satisfied by Ip's remark about the firestorm, and Ip was left wondering about his more-than-casual interest in the Miranda broadwave. "Seems to me we need to have a little chat, Ip." He leaned back in his chair, his hands steepled on the table before him, and settled in to tell the tale of what he deemed fit for Ip to hear. He drew in a deep breath. "I suppose it all starts with River, in a way. She—"

"Captain, we're about to enter controlled airspace," River's voice spoke through the comm.

"—but it'll have to wait," the Captain continued, to Ip's immense disappointment. "Got some flying to be done. I'm needed on the bridge."

. . .

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glossary

狗屎 gǒushǐ [crap]

闭嘴 Bìzuǐ [Shut up]

不要脸的东西 bùyàoliǎn de dōngxi [shameless and sub-human (of less worth than an object)]

* * *

_Your thoughts, comments, and feedback are welcome._


	30. Chapter 30

Ends with a Horse, Part 15a

_Serenity enters the Core_

* * *

The time had come for free and independent flight to come to an end. They were about to cross that invisible line that separated controlled space from the rest of the 'Verse. Near the Core worlds, all spacecraft flight was controlled. You had to file a flight plan and stick to it, you had to contact Space Traffic Control, and you had to follow the directions given by the Controller. If you tried to fly under the radar in the Core, you risked being stopped, searched, and arrested by an Alliance patrol, and if you landed on a Core world without proper authorization, you'd get cited, and might even lose your license. Accordingly, as they approached that invisible demarcation, Mal contacted the Space Traffic Control Center at Santo to activate the flight plan he had filed a few days before.

"Santo Center, this is Firefly Serenity 404-Echo-132-4 Foxtrot Echo-274-Alpha," Mal identified his ship by its complete registration number.

"274 Alpha, go ahead," the Space Traffic Controller answered.

"I'd like to activate my filed flight plan."

There was a slight pause while the controller located the flight plan to Bernadette that Mal had submitted. "Your plan is active, 274 Alpha. Flyway Victor 93 to ITAWT Intersection, Victor 118 to ITAWA, Victor 165 to PUDYE, Victor 3 to TTATT Intersection…" The controller rattled off a long string of numbered flyways and named intersections. These were the regular dynamic grid of coordinates and trajectories that formed the most efficient routes between one point and another, and the calculated points in space where these routes intersected. The controller for the most part confirmed the route Mal had filed, with a few minor modifications. "…from TWETY Intersection, direct Bernadette and contact Bernadette Approach," the controller concluded. "Squawk 5327 and Ident," the controller directed, assigning Mal his temporary transponder code for the journey.

Mal read back the entire modified flight plan to confirm it, while River punched in the squawk code. "Firefly 274 Alpha, Squawk 5327 and Ident," he finished, and hit the button that identified Serenity bright and clear to the space traffic controller in Santo Center. Having done so, he gave the nod to River, who aligned Serenity perfectly with the prescribed flyway. And there they were, officially in the Core, officially in controlled space, under the observation and direction of Space Traffic Control, identified for anyone who cared to look, from here until they landed on Bernadette. Gorram Core.

River watched as the tension visibly built up in Mal's shoulders. Eighty million more miles to go, and how much more tension to build?

. . .

It was as they were going to bed that night that he made his appeal.

"Got a request, Inara," Mal began, as he settled down on his side of the bed and pulled the covers up partway. Inara's pillows were smooth and inviting, and something about the scent of her shuttle always helped him relax. The subject was very serious, but he kept his tone cheersome and light. "Next time we fight, can we still sleep together?"

Because of course they _would _fight. But it didn't have to get so out of hand; it didn't have to escalate beyond all reason. Last time, they fought and didn't talk it out for nearly two weeks. For two weeks he was in a state of anxiety and uncertainty. He was confounded when he needed look sharp; his worries about their relationship distracted him at critical moments and jeopardized the safety of his crew. If they stuck together next time, they stood a better chance of talking it out, before it festered and swole up all out of proportion. He kept these thoughts to himself, determined not to taint their current state of good humor.

"Oh, so you _like_ sleeping together, do you?" she inquired provokingly. "Would you care to elaborate on that?" Perhaps she was hoping to induce him to express more romantic sentiments.

Mal stretched out full length on the bed, placed his hands behind his head, and puffed his chest out in a self-satisfied fashion. "Feels good," he answered with an obnoxious male smirk, "and I sleep better after."

"Men," she huffed in annoyance, but it was entirely lacking in sting. "So you're saying I should sleep with you even when I'm angry with you? What inducements can you offer?"

"How's about if I say please and bat my eyes all soulful and purty?" he asked, suiting action to word.

"Oh, alright," she conceded jokingly, "but only on account of those pretty eyes. So long as we have an understanding on that point."

He smirked again. But he was also completely serious. When he slept alone, he was far more likely to be awakened by nightmares—death and disaster, Serenity Valley, volcanic armageddon, Shadow, or a conflation of all of the above. In recent months Reaver chases and battles to the death over spinning generator blades had joined the milieu of horrors that his subconscious mind cooked up to keep him from getting a good, solid, restful night's sleep. But when he slept with Inara—and he really did mean _sleeping_, side by side, regardless of whatever activities might have preceded said sleeping—the nightmares were less frequent, or at least they troubled him less. He couldn't say if her presence banished them completely, or if it just reassured his sleeping mind that the horrors playing out in his head were not real. But somehow he was able to sleep through more often, and invariably awoke feeling better rested. For that alone, he ought to be thankful for the miracle of having Inara in his life. But he wasn't going to tell her that now. It sounded too needy and pathetic. So he opted for more smirking. "'S why you love me."

"Exactly," she responded. "So when you provoke me beyond all reason, and I'm angry enough to scream and tear my hair, I should just remember those pretty eyes and invite you into my bed notwithstanding?"

"Absolutely," he answered glibly, but then he turned serious. "But, no. Really. Next time we have a big fight—" (they both knew it was _when_, not _if_) "—can we just sleep together anyways? I think it might help."

"You really think having angry sex is going to solve our problems, Mal?"

"Yes!" he smirked, then ducked as she tried to hit him with a pillow. "I mean, no," he said seriously. "I didn't mean _that_. I meant, actually _sleeping._ Sleeping _together_, as opposed to _alone._" He broke eye contact, not wanting to talk about the nightmares. "I just think…things would be better…better chance of healing…if we don't shut ourselves off, try to wall up the problems. Best chance we have."

Inara gave him a serious look. Yes, he was right to point out that isolating themselves from one another had proved counterproductive. Only by talking to each other could they achieve better understanding. But she read the subtext, and knew that this was as close as Mal had ever come to admitting to his continuing problems with PTSD. He had nightmares rather frequently, as Inara knew from sleeping by his side for months now. They didn't always wake him. When they slept side by side, she found oftentimes that her presence was enough to settle him. Sometimes just her proximity and warmth, other times a gentle touch, was enough to break whatever cycle of hell his mind had gotten caught in, and let him settle back to sleep. She knew that when he slept alone in his own bunk, he often awoke in the middle of the night—and rarely did he fall back asleep. Instead he got up and prowled the halls of his ship or went to the bridge, until it was close enough to morning for him to go to the galley, make coffee, and pretend that he was merely up early.

"'Course," he added with another obnoxious smirk, "I wouldn't say no to the sex, if _you_ wanted it."

She beamed him with the pillow.

. . .

They were flying in the Core, and so far there had been no incident. Mal kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, courtesy of Saffron. The fact that she was no longer aboard was no guarantee that she couldn't still cause them trouble. She'd planted time-delayed devices before, and Mal kept expecting something bad to kick in and stop them dead in their tracks. Blown catalyzer. Engine seize up and stop spinning. Airlock breach. Stealth ship loom in their wake and start tracking them. Navsat failure. Cortex blow-out.

But nothing happened. They simply followed their filed flight plan, activated the thrusters at prescribed intervals to change course and follow the mapped-out flyways as per plan. From time to time, Space Traffic Control contacted the ship and directed course changes, presumably to avoid traffic or adverse conditions—although out here in the Black, even in the Core on standard flyways, there was very little to speak of in the way of traffic. Mal sometimes wondered if the directions to change course were just to keep them awake and make sure they were toeing the line. Periodically, they were handed off from one controller to another, as shifts ended and as they passed from one control zone to another.

Everything was going exactly according to plan, and Mal was becoming progressively more anxious, though he tried to maintain a calm demeanor. Things didn't go smooth for him. Never. Fact that they were goin' smooth now seemed to him just a portent of disaster to come.

. . .

.

.

.

* * *

_Into the Core they go...uh-oh! Your comments are appreciated. Extra points for anyone who gets the little pilot-y joke. (Yes, it's real; I didn't make it up.)_


	31. Chapter 31

Ends with a Horse, Part 15b

_Simon and Ip come up with a plan._

* * *

The Captain had shown no inclination to resume the conversation about Miranda, and spent most of his time on the bridge, now that they were flying in the Core. Ip did not dare disturb the flying (which he understood to require special attention, here in the Core), but he figured the Captain could answer a quick question. With Simon along to provide support, Ip chose a time when the Captain did not seem too busy to make his proposal.

"My friend Hari Nyiri works in the Reaver Studies Department of Blue Sun, Captain," Ip informed him earnestly. "The kind of information he knows—I've not been able to get much out of him, Captain, but that's because I'm the most unsuspicious person on the planet—"

_Understatement of the year_, thought Mal, as he regarded Ip and Simon from the pilot's chair. The two docs had come up to the bridge specially to speak with him.

"—and I wasn't particularly _looking_ for information about Reavers, Captain. But Simon likely can garner much more information."

"Since I am not only suspicious, but also paranoid."

"Hey, it ain't paranoia if they really _are_ after you, Doc."

"So I was thinking, Captain, what if I set up a meeting? Introduce Simon to Hari, and let them talk? Maybe even get Hari to bring along some of his colleagues from Reavers, and—"

"What!" This was crazy. 神经病Shén jīng bìng. It was an idiotic proposal, and he would put a stop to it before it went any farther. There was no way, no _rutting_ way, Mal would allow Ip to introduce Simon to any of his Blue Sun friends. Those were two worlds that should oughtta never meet. Someone from Blue Sun might recognize Simon, track him back to Serenity, track him back to River—no. No, no, _no_. Ip had to be kept on a short leash, in a carefully controlled environment, not let loose and bounding around in an open-ended situation where he could spill his secrets—_Mal's _secrets—_River's _secrets_—_to his Blue Sun friend and anyone he happened to bring along with him. Those old bosses who had fired him for his dangerous knowledge, for instance, or maybe (he shuddered to think it) 'friends' like Blue Hand Bill.

"Can't not never do it, nohow," Mal interrupted Ip's voluminous flow of words, and despite the seriousness of the situation, he thoroughly enjoyed Simon's perplexed expression. Ip, of course, was now wearing his trademark clueless look.

Four. Mal kinda prided himself on his ability to pile on the negatives. It was always good for throwing Doc off-balance—poor boy couldn't make out up from down when Mal tossed one of his better constructions at him. Didn't generally work on the other Core-bred members of his crew. River, she'd just peep into his brainpan and figure out what he meant. And Inara was so good at reading facial expressions and body language, it almost didn't matter what he said. But Simon was always tryin' to understand it literally, and he was so earnest about it, and it was just so gorram wickedly funny to see him follow the winding path of negatives and try and work out whether it came out meaning 'yes' or 'no'.

Mal just liked to yank his chain a bit. Of course he knew better. His momma was an English teacher, and she didn't allow double negatives in her house. But double negatives came natural-like to anyone who'd grown up on a Rim world, and he'd known some true artists in his time. The master of them all, the Nabob of Negatives himself, was Sergeant Beauford Hammett, Mal's drill instructor when he'd been a raw recruit. Mal had collected Sergeant Hammett's best lines and used a few of them himself. He'd never forget the time the Sarge had burst into the barracks during one of those rare moments of down time at boot camp, bellowing, "I don't wanna see nobody nowhere 'round here not doin' nothin' at no time, nohow! Get you a broom!" That was seven. Still made Mal whistle with admiration when he thought on it.

Meanwhile, the expression on Simon's face was priceless. And it appeared Ip was similarly stymied, since he was even more gape-mouthed than Simon. Mal watched as the two of them chewed it over, watched Ip's enthusiasm deflate like a popped balloon, while Simon's face went from muddled to angry (or maybe it was fearful—always hard to tell with a face like his) as he worked out and re-checked his answer, finally confirming that Mal meant 'no.'

Simon was displeased. He and Ip had worked out a plan. It was a good plan, and to have Mal dismiss it, almost sight unseen, having given it no more than two seconds' consideration, was beyond annoying.

His view of the Captain had evolved so much since he first came aboard, that he sometimes forgot what an unmitigated 混蛋 húndàn the man could be at times. Why was he being such a 流氓 liúmáng about it?

"Captain," Simon argued, "I'm sure you can see the advantages of having this meeting. Ip has a legitimate reason for contacting Hari at this point, and I have the means to draw him out. It's for River's sake, Captain. There might not be another opportunity like this."

"I can also see the disadvantages of this plan," Mal responded, "and it's for River's sake I'm sayin' so. It's too risky."

Simon knew there was no hope for the plan as soon as Mal said that. _Too risky. _ He wouldn't knowingly put River in danger again. Mal had just played his trump card. Granted, the Captain had his own enemies and independent reasons for wishing to fly under the radar, but Simon couldn't help but be aware that his and River's presence aboard had exponentially increased the risks the Captain took. He owed it to Mal not to put himself or River at risk.

But if Simon felt the Captain had backed him into a corner, Ip had no such sense of defeat, and he had already rallied. "It's no big deal, Captain," Ip said, not seeing problems anywhere, as per usual for him. "I could set up a meeting at a nice, inconspicuous place, like a restaurant or theatre, and—"

"A public place?"

"Well, yes, of course, that's how—"

"I don't think Simon oughtta be walkin' about in public in a place like this. Someone will notice him. Recognize him as Simon Tam, person of interest in the kidnapping of River Tam. Simon will stick out in a place like Bernadette."

_He_ would stick out on Core world? Simon was angry, but also incredulous. He was a Core Worlder. It was _Mal_ who would stick out in a place like Bernadette. Sure, if anyone questioned him closely, he didn't think he could pass for a Bernadette native. Bernadettiens tended to be more garrulous. He was too reserved. But even if they did identify him as a native of Osiris, what was wrong with that? So long as he wasn't positively identified as Simon Tam, he didn't think it would be a problem. He would of course use the false Ident Card that Mal had acquired for him awhile back—the one that listed him as Dr Simon Tang, anatomist, Senior Lecturer at Eli University on Osiris. False Ident cards weren't so hard to come by, if you knew the right people. That is to say, shady back-alley forgers and counterfeiters. Which the Captain apparently did. "I can blend in," Simon responded, looking the Captain in the eye, "and even if someone should ask, I have a suitable Ident Card." Simon had every confidence in the card the Captain had presented him with some months ago.

But Mal didn't. "That Ident Card won't hold up for a minute if anyone gives it a second look, Simon, and you know it," Mal told him. "Blue Sun still wants River. They'll still want you, Simon, because you can lead them to her. And they'll act without a warrant." Mal turned to the other man. "You know what happened on Beaumonde, Ip. You almost got killed and River almost got taken. And you're really willing to walk about in a public place, on a world where Blue Sun has its biggest research labs, meet up with a Blue Sun employee and all his so-called 'friends' to talk about Reavers—in public? Might as well wave your arms, jump up and down, and call the Blue Hands yourself. Ip, what kind of 白痴 báichī are you? I thought you had more intelligence than that."

Ip stood silent in the face of the Captain's reproof.

"What he has is trust," Simon spoke on Ip's behalf.

"Well, _I_ don't. I don't trust Blue Sun a bit. This project is no go. It's too risky. You two will end up being nabbed, and the rest of us will be killed trying to go in to rescue you."

"You'd come rescue us?" Ip asked amazed.

"You're on my crew," Mal said simply, and Simon remembered how he had felt the first time _he'd_ heard that. "But this cockamamie project is vetoed. 絕不 Juébù."

. . .

As the two doctors turned to leave the Captain's domain, Mal waylaid Ip. "Speakin' of Blue Sun, you heard back from your friend about that tracking beacon yet?" he asked him.

"Umm, no, Captain. I just didn't think about the beacon, with recent events." It seemed like another lifetime. In truth, it was only six weeks ago that Kaylee had discovered a tracking beacon attached to Serenity's hull. Ip had recognized it as a Blue Sun product, and the Captain had commissioned him to contact his friend Hari Nyiri to look into the matter. Since Hari still worked for Blue Sun, it was a relatively simple matter for him to look up which customer had purchased the beacon. Sales information was proprietary, not secret.

"Never you mind, Ip. Let's wave him now. Where on Bernadette is he?"

"Shinjuku," Ip answered, and Mal quickly looked up the local time. Confirming that they would not be waking Ip's friend in the middle of the night, he accessed the wave records from the bridge log, input the wave address, and set up the distance-wave protocol.

"Right, Ip. You're on." Mal ceded the seat to Ip as the wave went through the initiation sequence. "Keep in mind what I said about keeping our business private," he reminded Ip, with menace in his tone, and Ip immediately recalled the occasion on which the Captain had warned him against talking about Bill the Blue Hand assassin and other private matters. Mal took up a position behind Ip, out of range of the vid pickup, to monitor the conversation.

. . .

It was immediately apparent to Mal that there was unspoken history of some kind between Ip and his friend Hari Nyiri. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but there was something about the way the man looked at Ip. Whatever it was, Ip didn't bat an eyelash, just jumped right in as if this were completely normal and to be expected. Which maybe it was. Maybe it was just the Bernadette way of things.

At least Ip was holding up his end of the deal about keeping secrets. There was a lot of yapping, as Ip and his friend went through the preliminary meet and greet, reassured each other of their own fine state of health, and took in the surprising news that the other was fine too, thanks, and so were all their friends and relatives. _Good lord, these Bernadettiens are a talkative bunch,_ he thought, as Ip and Hari went through a whole gorram census list of friends and acquaintances whose exact state of fineness had to be ascertained. _Like to get my ear talked off, were I ever to be detained on that planet,_ Mal thought, but at the same time, he detected a method to the mad chatter. Ip and Hari had now moved on to discussing the personal lives of their research colleagues at Blue Sun, and when the time was ripe, Ip introduced the topic of the tracking beacon, smooth and easy, with nary a ripple. Ip was a natural.

"Well, that's the thing, Ip," Hari answered fluidly. "It wasn't sold to an outside party. According to the records at marketing, it was used in-house."

_Oh. Very interesting._

"So somebody at BSR used it."

"Appears so," Hari confirmed.

"What department?" Ip asked eagerly. "Was it Terraforming?"

"No, none of your old crew, Ip."

"Biosystems? Behavioral Technology?" Ip speculated enthusiastically, thwarting Hari's attempts to get a word in edgewise. "Oh wait, I know, it must have been—"

Mal rolled his eyes. Hari was trying to answer, but Ip kept cutting him off.

"—Nanotech? Chemical Engineering? Natural Resources? Oh, I know—it was Communications, wasn't it?"

"Shut up already, Ip," Hari interrupted. "It was Classified."

"Your department, then."

"Oh, no, Ip," Hari laughed, and Mal began to see the wisdom of Ip's approach after all. "I would have told you that, just to get you to stop guessing. No, it wasn't signed out to someone from Reavers. It was classified, even for _me_—and you know what that means. It was almost certainly someone from Bill's department. Remember Bill? Bill Borjigin?

Mal had to give Ip credit. He didn't give anything away. He sat very still, but he merely said, "Yeah."

"Bill's department," Hari repeated. "Internal Security. Some super-secret corporate spy thing, I don't doubt. Remember how we used to tease him about it? _'My name is Borjigin. Bill Borjigin. Shaken, not stirred.'"_ Caught up in his own humor, Hari laughed. "Bill has always been really into that secret agent stuff. Even has a code name, remember? 'Baatar'—Mongolian for 'hero.' The egoist."

"Yeah." Ip forced a weak smile. Mal had again to give him credit, considering that the last time Ip had seen Blue Hand Bill, the man had tried to kill him. "How is Bill, anyway? Have you seen him lately?" Ip managed, and Mal was seriously impressed by the performance.

"Oh, Bill's fine," Hari answered. "Saw him a few weeks ago. He was off to Beaumonde on a temporary assignment. Or I think it was Beaumonde. He didn't say, actually. All that hush-hush cloak-and-dagger secret agent stuff, you know. He asked me to take care of his goldfish while he was gone."

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

神经病Shén jīng bìng [Insane]

混蛋 húndàn [bastard]

流氓 liúmáng [jerk, asshole]

白痴 báichī [idiot]

絕不 Juébù [No way]

* * *

_I appreciate your reviews and comments. Not long now before things begin to happen...and when they do..._


	32. Chapter 32

Ends with a Horse, Part 16a

_Waiting for the other shoe to drop, and antics with eggs_

* * *

The fact that they'd made it this far with no incident just seemed all manner of wrong to Mal. Clearly Saffron hadn't spent five days on his boat just to harass him about his love-life and piss off every member of the crew. And yet nothing out of the ordinary happened. The engine turned, the ship flew, the crew went about their business, and the space traffic controllers directed Serenity ever closer to Bernadette, which loomed larger and larger in the bridge window. It just didn't seem possible that they had found and disarmed all of her devices.

He was convinced that Saffron had planted something that would really screw up the ship and screw him over. Since nothing had gone wrong yet, it simply meant that the Sword of Damocles was yet dangling over his head, ready to come down on him the moment he dropped his guard.

Further searches had not revealed any more of those thin, programmable fuse filaments she'd had so many of. Still didn't mean they'd found 'em all, but Mal's focus had turned to software. River was still going on about "ends with a horse" at every opportunity, and Mal spent hours going through the bridge software, trying to guess where to look for the Trojan horse.

She'd installed some kind of software glitch, that would be triggered at some point and foul up the ship's navigation, steering, or propulsion system. Or she'd planted a bug, and everything he said was somehow being recorded at some Alliance or Blue Sun listening post, to be used against him later. Or she'd installed a tracker that was now broadcasting Serenity's location, or one that would send a signal as soon as they came within range of a Core planet, and upon landing his ship would be met by a squadron of Feds who would arrest him and escort him to prison, never to see the light of day again. Or worse, a posse of Blue Hands, who would retrieve River and take her back to that 很可怕 hěn kěpà Academy, and kill the rest of his crew with those awful rod weapons that Ip had described.

With cheersome speculations like these to comfort his waking hours, he became more and more of a nervous wreck, although (as always) he suppressed the outward signs. At night, however, he couldn't control the anxieties, and nightmares returned with vengeful force. Even Inara couldn't settle him back to sleep, and he began sneaking out of bed most nights around three or four in the morning so he wouldn't disturb her rest. He generally finished the last two or three hours of the nightcycle prowling the halls of Serenity, or sitting on the bridge, doubling Zoe's or River's watch, and drinking more coffee than was healthy.

. . .

If he weren't so concerned about makin' noise, Jayne woulda been humming with anticipation as the two eggs cooked in the pan. Some nights he boiled 'em, some nights he fried 'em, some nights he poached 'em. He wished he knew how to make the Shepherd's Haulin' Daze Sauce, 'cause that stuff tasted real good, but he didn't know what was in it, and he suspected it took a while to do it right. And hell, if he was bein' honest—which he wasn't, when he didn't hafta be—but this was with himself, so who was he tryin' to fool anyhow?—it was probably beyond his cookin' skills.

Tonight he was real hungry, so he was goin' with the fastest cookin' he knew. Quick scrambled. Heat the pan real hot, beat up yer eggs, a little oil, dump 'em in, keep stirrin', and they cooked in seconds. Jayne had just dumped 'em out onto his plate and turned off the cooktop when he heard the telltale skreek of the Captain's hatch opening.

Mal and his gorram insomnia. Gorrammit, thought he'd have more time. Abandoning the dirty pan, Jayne grabbed the plate and snuck away down the opposite corridor. For a large man he was remarkably light on his feet—made him a good tracker. It was only when he was safe in the doorway of Shuttle Two that he realized he had no fork. Oh well, didn't make no matter. Jayne set down on the deck, held the plate up, and tipped it into his open mouth. Dee-licious.

. . .

Instead of heading to the bridge first, Mal diverted to the dining room, his suspicions aroused by the unexpected smell. It wasn't a bad smell—not like the stink comin' out of Jayne's bunk, which was mercifully sealed shut at the present time. Actually, smelled kinda like food. Something tasty.

As he patrolled the dining room, he noticed an unwashed pan left out on the cooktop. Gorrammit, whose turn was it for dishwashing? He made a mental note to look up the culprit and put yellin' at 'em on his mental list of captain-y things to do. He made for the stove and grabbed the pan, intending to dump it in the sink and wash it himself.

"他妈的 Tāmādē!" he exclaimed, dropping the pan with a clatter. The thing was burning hot. 这是什么 Zhè shì shénme?! Who was cookin'—what was it, _eggs?_—at ruttin' four o'clock in the morning? And furthermore, where'd they get the gorram eggs? He ran his hand under cold water from the sink, hissing more with vexation than pain. Shutting off the tap, he grabbed the dishtowel that served as Serenity's potholder, picked up the pan, washed it one-handed, dried it, and stowed it, before he stumped off cursing to the bridge to check on the flying.

. . .

After breakfast was cleared away, Ip set up on the dining room table to work on his scientific papers, as was his frequent habit. River joined him, and soon they were deep into mathematics and terraforming. Simon was washing up after breakfast, which was all to the better, as far as Mal was concerned. Doc needed to hear this, too. Mal figured this would be a good place to corner Ip, so once he was settled, Mal quit lurking in the corridor and returned to the dining room for another cup of coffee.

Forgetting about his burned hand for the moment, he reached for the coffee pot just as Simon pulled it off the stove to wash it, and the gorram thing thumped right against the burned spots on his hand. He let out a rapidly suppressed hiss of pain.

"对不起 Duìbuqǐ, Captain, I didn't realize you were—did it burn your hand?" Simon didn't understand how it could have—the pot was no more than luke-warm. Had Mal jammed his finger? He dried his hands on the dishtowel and entered physician mode.

"Coffee pot ain't hot enough to burn no more, Doc," the Captain answered, making a game attempt to smile, "it's just—"

Simon could see the pain in his eyes, and without further discussion, he reached into a nearby locker to retrieve the small medkit he stowed there.

"Show me your hand," Simon requested authoritatively, fully in physician mode.

"Ain't nothing, Simon," Mal demurred, shaking out his hand.

"Which means it's something," Simon countered. Mal wasn't the only one who could use double negatives to his advantage.

Mal made no move to offer up his hand for inspection, and tried to glare at Simon.

"I'm a doctor, Captain. You don't _have _to tough it out. Show." He accompanied his command with the doctor-glare he reserved for his most recalcitrant patients.

Mal scowled, but complied.

"How did you get second-degree burns on your fingers?" Simon asked, eyeing the tepid coffee pot doubtfully.

"Burned it on a hot pan," Mal answered shortly.

"When? Making breakfast?"

"'Round four am."

"What were you doing cooking at four am?" Simon demanded.

"Didn't say I was cookin'. Came in here, found a dirty pan left out, grabbed it to wash up, got burned."

"What were you doing up at four am?" Simon asked, temporarily deferring the question of what had possessed Mal to wash dishes at four am. Let alone who _else_ had been up at four am cooking.

"Listen, Doc, I didn't come in here to play twenty questions," Mal retorted impatiently. "Can we get to the fixin' it up?"

The kitchen medkit was stocked with burn bandages, and Simon pulled one out and wrapped it around Mal's hand. "This will prevent infection and fluid loss. It will also provide some pain relief."

Mal was about to reply irritably, but the bandage was in fact so immediately effective that he changed course gave a grudging, "Thanks, Doc."

Simon nodded and returned to his dishwashing, reaching again for the coffee pot to dump it. But his hand encountered thin air. The Captain was already pouring the tepid dregs of the coffee into his mug. The man must be desperate for caffeine, to drink that stuff. Insomnia, irritability, anxiety, depression…the Captain was like a walking textbook case for PTSD. Simon wished he would let him treat him. But Mal was unlikely to feel comfortable talking it out with him. He wasn't a trained psychiatrist, anyway—a fact that was brought home to him every time he confronted his sister's problems. Simon knew damn well that Mal would be uncompliant if he prescribed him medications for PTSD—it was difficult enough persuading the man to put a bandage on his burn, for 天的 tiān de sake. Mal wasn't likely to let him prescribe the anti-depressants which were commonly used in PTSD treatment regimens. But to tell the truth, Simon was also reluctant to do so—the more so since many of those anti-depressants were closely related to the G-32 paxilon hydrochlorate used to drug the population of Miranda into submission and death.

Mal took a swig of bitter coffee sludge, made a face, but swallowed it nonetheless. Returning the empty pot and his mug to the sink, he turned to the dining table and accosted Ip.

"Ip, you got relatives on Bernadette, 不是嗎 bùshìma?"

Ip looked up from his work. "Yes, Captain. My parents, Bubby, Zaide, and Aunt Waltraud live in Shinjuku. Various cousins, too. My sister Keiko lives in Macao, as well as Uncle Yoshi, and most of my mother's relatives live in the southern hemisphere, in Manhattan."

"Listen, Ip, Doc. Got a notion. I'm thinkin' it might be okay for you two to meet up with your friend Hari after all." Ip began to thank him and chip in his two credits' worth as well, but Mal had more to say and wouldn't brook interruption. "Just Hari. No extra Blue Sun pals. But it's gotta look like a social meetin'. Nice and private."

"But—"

"Somewhere inconspicuous. Maybe your parents' place, Ip."

"But—"

"Any reason to think your folks' place might be bugged?"

"Bugged?" Ip squawked, his train of thought derailed by the Captain's unexpected question. "Why would anyone bug my parents' apartment?" He seemed to grapple with it for a moment before getting back on his own track. "But, Captain—"

"Your folks can be discreet, Ip? Won't tell nobody what you all are talkin' about? Don't want nobody who shouldn't hear, listening to you all jabbering on about Reavers and such," Mal continued.

"But—"

"But what already, Ip?" Mal asked, rounding on him.

"But nobody invites guests to their homes on Bernadette, Captain," Ip objected.

"Why not?" Mal asked reasonably. "Bernadettiens ain't a very hospitable bunch, then?"

"No, it's not that. My parents love to entertain. I'm sure they'd like to have all of you as guests, but what I meant—"

"House too messy? Don't want to take the trouble to clean up for visitors?"

"No, it's just—"

"You just don't think Simon would make a very good guest," Mal surmised, mostly just to yank Simon's chain a bit more.

The Doctor's reaction was predictable. "嘿 Hēi!" he objected.

"I know our Doc don't have the best manners. Kinda off-putting, he is."

"喂 Wèi! I'm standing right here."

"With his superior airs, always actin' like he knows more 'n other people," Mal continued.

"I don't act like I know more than other people!" Simon protested, but then honesty compelled him to add, "Well, except when, in fact, I _do_. I _am _a physician, you know."

"Exactly," Mal agreed, pointing at the Doctor as if Simon had just proven his point. "Like that. Always actin' superior, using a five-credit word when an everyday one would do just fine. Words like—" Mal searched a moment for an example.

"Adscititious," suggested River.

"Like that," Mal nodded. "Words that don't add no extra meaning to the conversation."

"Precisely," agreed River with a grin.

"You're saying I use excessive verbiage, Captain?" Simon inquired.

"Instead of using plain speech, he's always goin' for the word that's more obscure—"

"Abstruse. Caliginous. Recondite."

"—talkin' circles around the rest of us—"

"Circumlocution."

"—makin' all of us look like cavemen—"

"Troglodytes."

"—instead of native speakers of the language."

"Expatiation in the autochthonous manner."

Simon objected strongly. "嘿 Hēi, I don't—"

"Who was it said there was a 'noxious effluvium exuding from Jayne's bunk'?" Mal quoted obnoxiously.

Simon could only growl and seethe. He couldn't deny that he'd used those exact words.

"I won't deny it was one helluva bad smell, but I just don't see the need for all the excessive syllabification."

"Now who's using too many syllables?" Simon countered, enumerating the nine syllables on his fingers. "'Excessive syllabification,' Captain? Really?"

"Too many words," River enunciated carefully.

"Superfluous," Mal added with a smirk.

Dumping the dishtowel on the counter, Simon declared, "I'm going to sequester myself in the infirmary and cogitate on the ramifications of this aberrant and excessive use of overexuberant syllabification," and retreated to his own domain, where he would be safe from attacks on his vocabulary, and where he could counter-attack if necessary with the threat of imminent vaccination.

. . .

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glossary

很可怕 hěn kěpà [godawful]

他妈的 Tāmādē [Damn it]

这是什么 Zhè shì shénme?! [What the hell?! (lit. What is this?)]

对不起 Duìbuqǐ [I'm sorry]

不是嗎 bùshìma [isn't that so]

Bubby [Grandma (Yiddish)]

Zaide [Grandpa (Yiddish)]

嘿 Hēi [Hey]

喂 Wèi [Hello! Hey!]

* * *

_Uh-oh! When's the other shoe gonna drop? Jayne almost got caught this time. And what about that plan to meet with the Reaver studies guy? Gonna go well, you think? Express your opinions, with or without excessive syllabification. ;-)_


	33. Chapter 33

Ends with a Horse, Part 16b

_Setting up the meet, and software searches_

* * *

His amusement at Simon's expense still remaining on his face, Mal turned back to Ip. "Seriously, Ip, is there a good reason why you don't want the meeting between Simon and your Reaver friend to take place at your parents' apartment?"

"Captain, it's simply that Bernadettiens don't entertain visitors at home. Most Bernadettiens live in tiny apartments, and when we have guests, we meet them at a restaurant or hotel or some other public place."

"But this ain't the kind of meeting should take place in public. Draw too much attention that way, I'm thinking."

"On Bernadette, inviting someone into your home for a private meeting would be even more conspicuous," Ip informed him. "Surest way to draw attention, because it's so unusual." The Captain still looked skeptical, so he added, "People discuss confidential business and personal matters at restaurants all the time, Captain. Most restaurants have secluded booths or private rooms for that purpose. All that's necessary is to choose the restaurant wisely."

"Alright then," Mal agreed. "But don't let on to your Reaver friend that this is anything more than a social occasion. Tell him there's a friend he oughtta meet and leave it at that."

"Oh, I see," Ip replied, finally tuned in to the plan. "No names, right? I'll tell him that I want him to meet a friend of mine. Someone he'll find very interesting—a nice guy, a scientist, who has traveled all over the 'Verse—"

Mal nodded and cut it short, now that he knew Ip understood what he was asking of him. "How's about you come to the bridge now, make the wave, and set up the meet?"

. . .

"The bot controller is in place, the boss says. Did you hear if the agent installed the RF device?"

"I understand that she did." Anatoly didn't really know, but that had never stopped him from making assertions. "When we bring them down in Secure Port—"

_When _I_ bring them down,_ Boromiro corrected silently, for he knew _he_ would be doing most, if not all, of the flying. Anatoly couldn't land a tethered weather balloon in a wide-open field without mishap, let alone a spaceship in a secure berth. Didn't practice enough with the flight simulator.

"—we'll use the remote, pop the airlock, and board."

"You mean, the Hands will board."

Anatoly paused, wind knocked out of his sails for a moment, as reality hit him. The Blue Hands operatives would board; he and Boromiro were only technical support staff. "We'll _observe_ the boarding," he corrected, "but _I'll_ be the one who pops the lock."

Boromiro nodded at Anatoly like a trained puppy, all agreeable on the surface. Meanwhile, he snagged the radio-frequency remote and secreted it in a drawer, so that when the moment came, only _he _would know where it was. "Do you think they'll let us watch? Or will they cut the channel and hustle us away, like last time?"

. . .

"Well, Captain, I'm having trouble discovering any evidence of malware," Ip told him, after spending a considerable time both at the console on the bridge and on the Captain's personal cortex screen in his quarters. Mal had finally decided that he was more worried about what Saffron _had_ done, than what Ip _might_ do, and asked Ip to look for the Trojan horse.

He'd nonetheless spent the last several hours observing him at work, because he _still_ didn't completely trust Ip. Man had spilled a lot of confidential info about Miranda, clearly looking for something in return—but the question was, _why? _Ip was very keen to know what Mal knew about Miranda, but Mal wasn't completely convinced that Ip's agenda was limited to the pure and innocent quest for scientific knowledge. And until he knew for sure what the man was after, he'd rather maintain his habitual barrier of suspicion.

Truth was, he was bored out of his skull watching Ip work. Ip systematically checked through directories of software, in some cases opening the files, in some cases, reviewing the code. Mal watched carefully and provided usernames, passwords, and access codes, but damned if he really knew what Ip was looking for.

For the most part Ip simply skimmed through the lists of files without comment, but occasionally he raised his eyebrows or hmm'd, and Mal was on him like a chicken on a junebug, asking what he'd found. In most cases the answer was something quite mundane. "This program has been updated six times in the last six months," was Ip's comment about the cortex long-distance wave communication software.

Mal shrugged his shoulders. Communications and navigation were updated frequently, and in the case of navigation, regular updates were required by law, to maintain flight currency. Not that Mal hadn't skimped before. There were times when he'd gone months and months without a nav update, especially when the budget was stretched thin. If it was a choice between being able to afford food to eat or receiving notification that _'all atmospheric craft on Londinium will require a special permit to fly in the Capitol Zone on Monday, July 14, on account of the opening of a special session of Parliament,'_ he'd choose eating_._ If he'd been inspected during the period of lapse, he could have lost his license, but since _that_ was another thing that he'd let lapse during the hardest and thinnest stretch, it didn't bother him much at the time. But now was different. He'd made a point of renewing his ship's registration and license five months ago on Persephone, when they were repairing and refitting right under the nose of the Operative and the Feds after the battle with the Reavers. And he'd made gorram well sure his navigational software was current before making this trip to the Core. Alls he'd need was to have this whole operation bunged up on account of some low-level traffic stop turning into a citation for lapses in software currency, leading to examining his license, pulling his file, discovering his past, finding some outstanding warrant he wasn't aware of, resulting in his imprisonment and the ruination of all aboard.

"The navigational software has a large amount of inactive code," Ip told him. "I'm no expert in navigation software, although I had to work with little bits of it, for some of the orbiters and landers I designed in the past, to take terraforming data." Mal nodded. "This whole section of code—" he indicated a vast swathe of what was pure gibberish to Mal "—has been active recently, and has been updated frequently, according to the update and usage logs. I don't know for sure what its purpose is, but my best guess is that it relates to some kind of automated communications system."

"Most like," Mal agreed. "The nav software has whole portions we don't use, but the fleet ships that make regular runs on regular routes rely on 'em. Lot of those ships pre-program their trajectories and let flight bots control the whole route. Pilot don't do no more than okay the route and take action to override if something unexpected comes up."

He'd learned that from Wash. It was the main reason why a talented pilot of Wash's caliber had ever agreed to fly his ship: because the better-paid jobs with a regular freight or cruise line were _boring._ Wash had signed on with him primarily because he wanted to _fly_—really and actually fly—as opposed to sit there and oversee the autopilot. Wash jumped at the job because he wanted excitement. And because—as Wash explained repeatedly, insistently, in great detail, and without any encouragement—he thought Zoe was _hot_.

The '03 Firefly was such an old boat that a lot of the modern flight bots didn't work very well anyhow. And furthermore, Kaylee—with Wash's input—had jury-rigged so many of Serenity's systems to keep her flying that he doubted the interplanetary flight bot would function properly anyhow, even if they wanted it to. Probably fly Serenity right straight into the gorram White Sun instead of Shinjuku Spaceport.

It was true that they sometimes relied on Serenity's rudimentary autopilot. They depended on the admittedly lousy proximity detectors to alert them in case of emergency, but for the most part the autopilot was only engaged during routine interplanetary space flight, when for some reason the pilot on watch needed a break.

"There's also been recent access to your personal files, Captain."

_Damn Saffron_, Mal thought. _Wait._ "Coulda been me."

"I suppose it could," Ip replied. "The user had the proper access codes."

"Anything suspicious?"

Ip shrugged. "Just the recent updates to communications and navigation," Ip answered "and then there's this." He pointed to the log file.

"What's that do?" Mal asked. It was all so much gobbledegook to him.

"It's an automatic communication ping. Like your transponder, but on a different frequency. It seems to be a regular part of the software, but it was enabled recently."

"What's the source?" Mal asked. He didn't recollect installing or turning on such a thing.

"It says auto-update from NavWare," Ip reported, after investigating the origin of the update.

Mal nodded. That was the company that made the nav software. Was it legitimate, then? Or some kind of tracker? Wait. "I don't pay for auto-update service."

"Oh." Ip tapped at the keyboard, then told him, "Your last manual update was last Monday, NavWare Version…2545.7.20071231." Mal nodded. That was the day they left Beaumonde. "But there have been two auto-updates since. Version 32 on Wednesday, and Version 33 was installed on Thursday."

Mal thought for a moment. He was sure he hadn't updated the nav software more than once—each installation cost him. "Can we uninstall the new ones? And keep the first, the manual installation?"

"No," Ip answered. "But I can manually turn off the ping."

Mal nodded, and Ip tapped and clicked. "I could download a new version from the cortex, and install it over the earlier ones."

Mal shook his head. Update would cost him, and according to Ip, he was current—more than current. "Anything else?"

"Not that I can tell," Ip replied.

A new thought struck Mal. "What about software from Blue Sun?"

"Well…" Ip replied slowly, "umm, actually, almost all of this software is from Blue Sun."

Mal raised his eyebrows.

"Not directly, not labeled as such. But, for example, the software related to helm control is made by Sun Microdot, which is a daughter company of Blue Sun Software Division. And the software that operates the life-support systems is manufactured by Sun Systems."

'_Vista Sun, New Worlds, Chow Interplanetary, Wing Beaumont, Bartihalon, Sun Microdot, Allmine, Huli Network…Ring M, Durai, Doembrown and Sinkall—all divisions of Blue Sun.'_ The words of the three Purplebellies they'd shared drinks with at the bar on Beylix came to mind. "Sun Systems another Blue Sun company, then?"

Ip nodded. "The communications software is from Alliance Bell, but it's made to their specifications by Sun Screens Cortex Communications, another division of Blue Sun. And the navigation software itself—"

"That's government software. Download it direct from the Space Traffic Control cortex site."

"Yes, but they don't write it. They contract it out, and the writing is done by Astra Azul, which is—"

"Another gorram Blue Sun company?" _'Little ones in the corner that you almost don't see. But they're the ones that reach in and do it. They're the ones with teeth.' _River's words from long ago echoed in Mal's mind. Buck Holden had also told him—Blue Sun was _everywhere_, and their reach extended into _everything._ _'They come out of the black and bite you when you're least expecting it.' _ "Bite you in the 屁股 pìgu."

They still did not really know which systems or software Saffron had fouled up.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

屁股 pìgu [butt]

* * *

_Okay, now you know why Ip was saying they couldn't meet at his parents' apartment. It's true, you know. Ip's parents have a nice apartment in the bustling urban center of Shinjuku, but it's just tiny. There's a kitchen, a bathroom, and a main room, tastefully decorated with tatami floor mats. During the day time, the main room is furnished for sitting, working, and eating; at night, the low table is set aside, the seat cushions are placed in the cabinets, the futons are pulled out, and the room becomes the bedroom. They can fit in an extra futon when Ip or his sister come home to visit, but not much else. (How do I know all this? I'm the writer! ;-) )_


	34. Chapter 34

Ends with a Horse, Part 17a

_In which things begin to go wrong_

* * *

Following the Captain's guidance, Ip again contacted Hari and arranged the meeting. The usual place, dinner after work on Friday. Hari would wave the restaurant and reserve a private dining room. He went to inform Simon of the plan.

"Hari's chosen a restaurant to meet at."

"Are you sure that's a good idea, Ip?" Simon had not heard Ip and the Captain's discussion of the public versus private venue for the meeting, and was still under the impression that Mal had vetoed a public meeting place.

"Of course it's a good idea. The place Hari chose has some of the best sushi on the planet, and we can easily get there by subway."

"That's not what I meant. _In public? _ I mean, isn't that rather conspicuous? Why not meet at his apartment, or your parents' place, or—"

"Simon, on Bernadette, _no one_ entertains at home. Have you seen the size of most Bernadettien apartments, Simon? Everyone meets friends and business associates at restaurants. It would be conspicuous to try to meet up privately. Trust me, if we meet at a restaurant, no one will give us a second look. And, like I was saying: _best sushi on the planet_. You do like sushi, don't you?"

"Of course." Simon couldn't help it: his mouth began watering, just thinking about sushi. _Any_ fresh food, actually, after weeks of packaged food in space. He knew his objections had been overruled. Defeated by sushi, of all things.

. . .

The hand-off to Bernadette Approach had gone slick as spit—no incident, no malfunction, no suspicious nothin'. Mal was just about sick with anxiety, and with a splitting headache brought on by a combination of worry, lack of sleep, way too much caffeine, and a feeling of impending doom. Everything was going way too smooth, and what that meant to him was—whatever was gonna hit them, was gonna hit them hard, just as they made their final approach and landing.

Bernadette loomed large in the bridge windows, and the moment Mal had long been dreading arrived. Bernadette Approach directed him to contact Shinjuku Tower. This was the fateful moment, when he had to hand over control of his beloved ship to some faceless Space Traffic Controller. River keyed in the frequency and Mal contacted the Tower.

"Shinjuku Tower, this is Firefly Serenity 404-Echo-132-4-Foxtrot-Echo-274-Alpha."

"Loud and clear, Firefly Serenity 274-Alpha. Prepare to transfer your helm to Tower control," the Space Traffic Controller directed.

"Preparing to transfer, 274 Alpha," Mal confirmed, a sinking feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. Good-bye to independence, hello to gorram Feds flying his ship wherever they damn well pleased.

Though his heart rebelled against it, Mal clicked on the button to transfer control to Shinjuku Tower. He immediately felt the subtle change in motion, as the Tower's flight bot made slight adjustments to Serenity's speed, course, and trim. "Transfer complete, 274-Alpha," he reported, trying to keep the sick feeling out of his voice.

He sat there, helpless, as Serenity flew onwards, and tried to distract himself by watching Bernadette's topographical features coast by. Soon they'd break atmo, and then their atmospheric course involved a half circuit of the planet in upper atmo to employ friction braking, a gradual descent over the course of the remainder of the orbit, and a final approach to Shinjuku spaceport. Or so the plan was. Fact was, the flight bot controller could fly him wherever they gorram well pleased and land him in a swamp if they wanted, and not a gorram thing he could do about it, unless he engaged the emergency override and went to manual. In which case there'd be some serious explainin' to do to Space Traffic Control when he got on the ground.

In about an hour's time, they'd be landed at the industrial waterfront spaceport of the shiny vertical city of Shinjuku. Gorram Core. Have to deal with Port Authority and all the Core-world prejudice he was sure to encounter, with his Rim-world accent and less-than-Core-worthy pedigree.

He was jolted from his dismal thoughts by the Controller's voice. "Firefly 274-Alpha, transfer your helm."

Hadn't he done that already? Mal flashed a look at Zoe. She raised her eyebrows, confirming what he thought. He sat up straight and scrolled through his console screen to confirm. Surely he hadn't imagined pushing the button?

"Pushed it." River indicated the green banner on the co-pilot's console. "Not a problem of imagination."

"Thought I did transfer, Shinjuku Tower," Mal told the Controller. "对不起 Duìbuqǐ, I'll try it again…274-Alpha." He added his call sign in afterthought, as his fingers danced over the keyboard, calling up the transfer protocol once more, and going through the necessary steps to set up the transfer again. Again he pushed the button to engage. _Error_ read the screen. "Error?" Mal read, off-mic, and River and Zoe swiveled their heads his direction immediately. "Why's this reading an error?"

River's fingers flew over the keyboard on the co-pilot's console, and in a few short seconds, she had her answer. "Can't transfer twice. Transfer already went through."

Mal contacted the Controller. "Our console reads transfer complete," Mal reported.

There was a delay in response, while the Controller, who was managing the courses of multiple incoming spacecraft, spoke to other ships on the same channel in turn, directing their courses, before returning to Mal. "Firefly 274-Alpha, transfer is incomplete on our end." While Mal puzzled over this disconcerting news, the Controller continued, "Carry on the same course. We'll see if it comes through soon."

As an experiment, Mal immediately tried to make an adjustment to the ship's course. Serenity didn't respond. Tower had control of his helm, no doubt about it. But why didn't they know it?

"Kaylee?" he called into the comm.

"Yes, Cap'n," Kaylee's cheery voice responded from the engine room.

"We got any mechanical reason why that helm transfer to Shinjuku Tower didn't go through?"

"On it, Cap'n." There was a pause as Kaylee moved briskly around the engine room, checking systems. "Everything's a-okay here, so far as I can tell," she reported after a moment. "Diagnostic shows the helm in control of the flight bot, just like it should be."

"Firefly Serenity 274-Alpha, how's that helm transfer coming?" the Controller interrupted Mal's thoughts.

"Helm's already been transferred, far as we can tell," Mal reported.

"Well, your helm is still not under our control," the Controller informed him. Mal rolled his eyes. They could go back and forth all day with this "did" and "did not" 廢話 fèihuà, but it wouldn't help them fly the gorram boat. Meanwhile, all the other pilots listening on this communication channel were no doubt raising their eyebrows, ridiculing his seeming incompetence, and no doubt lookin' forward to a bit of excitement and drama. More entertaining than a barrel of space monkeys.

_Great. Just what I wanted. Make a big scene. Arrive in the spotlight. _"Well, the helm ain't under my control, neither," Mal informed her, somewhat testily. "So who's flyin' my boat right now?"

. . .

"Transfer complete, Boromiro?"

"Got it right here, Anatoly," Boromiro answered, with a satisfied grin. The display panel in front of him was a virtual replica of the standard control console of the '03 Firefly. Primitive as anything, not like the Phalanx 99 or the Scorpion Ultra, but spacetrash couldn't afford ships like that. The '03 Firefly was just about the oldest ship he had ever remote-flown, with the exception of an early model Trans-U they had once landed at Blue Sun Security's private secure spaceport. Never knew what the management wanted with a Trans-U, but apparently there was something quite impressive aboard that ship, for all the elite agents had turned up to meet it, and cleared the area of tech support as soon as the thing was landlocked.

Anatoly was rubbing his hands with glee. "Now the fun begins."

"You want to fly it?" Boromiro offered insincerely. "You can break atmo." He hoped Anatoly would decline, because he wanted to be in control.

"No, you go ahead," Anatoly replied, as Boromiro had anticipated. Anatoly preferred to issue orders, and Boromiro didn't mind playing to his ego a bit, as long as it was his own hands on the controls. "Why don't we give 'em the scenic tour?"

Boromiro grinned. This was going to be fun.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

对不起 Duìbuqǐ [Sorry]

廢話 fèihuà [nonsense]

* * *

_Uh-oh. And now it begins..._


	35. Chapter 35

Ends with a Horse, Part 17b

_In which things continue to go wrong_

_A/N: Some uncensored swear words in English in this section. You have been forewarned._

* * *

_(Previously on Ends with a Horse…)_

"_Helm's already been transferred, far as we can tell," Mal reported._

"_Well, your helm is still not under our control," the Controller informed him. Mal rolled his eyes. They could go back and forth all day with this "did" and "did not" __廢話__fèihuà__, but it wouldn't help them fly the gorram boat. Meanwhile, all the other pilots listening on this communication channel were no doubt raising their eyebrows, ridiculing his seeming incompetence, and no doubt lookin' forward to a bit of excitement and drama. More entertaining than a barrel of space monkeys._

Great. Just what I wanted. Make a big scene. Arrive in the spotlight. _"Well, the helm ain't under my control, neither," Mal informed her, somewhat testily. "So who's flyin' my boat right now?"_

. . .

Shit. Shit, shit, _shit_. This was just exactly the kind of thing he _didn't_ want to happen. They were about to break atmo in the Core, Serenity wasn't under his control, and the Space Traffic Controllers didn't have a gorram clue who was in charge of his helm neither. Damned if he was gonna let some gorram flight bot crash his boat. "Shinjuku Tower," Mal made his request, during a brief lull in the chatter on the busy channel, "This is Firefly Serenity 274 Alpha. How's about you transfer control back to me, so's we can try this again."

"274 Alpha, taking your request under advisement," the Controller responded. There was a dreadful pause that seemed to Mal to stretch for hours, as this obvious bit of common-sense advice was mulled over by whomever at the Tower. Gorrammit, what were they waitin' for? Didn't have all day. Crashing only took a matter of minutes.

Finally, a voice broke the dead air on the channel. "274 Alpha, engage thrusters and enter a parking orbit at 300 miles from surface," the Controller directed.

_Thank goodness someone's payin' attention_, Mal thought, relieved at receiving this sensible direction. They could park all day, sort out the problem at their leisure, and then try a new entry sequence once things were set in order. He entered the necessary commands to follow the Controller's directions, only to receive a series of error messages, each one accompanied by a loud rejection noise.

"Uh, Tower, that's, uh, that's a negative…274 Alpha," Mal reported distractedly. The barrage of error noises rattled him, all those gorram buzzers and beepers, and _couldn't someone turn the gorram volume down?! _ "Kaylee!" Mal called into the internal comm. "Can you work an override on them—?" There wasn't time to complete the thought, as the Controller demanded his attention. "Thrusters won't engage," he reported. He was scrolling through the control screen, trying a re-start on the thruster protocols, and it was only by careful act of will that he kept at bay the panic that loomed at the edge of his mind.

Zoe popped a message onto his screen. Reading it, Mal explained to the Controller, "Shinjuku Tower, seems that you ain't relinquished control back to us, 274 Alpha."

"274 Alpha, we never _had_ control," the Controller returned, with a touch of asperity. "_You _have control, according to our readings."

Enough of this _Yes-you-do-No-I-don't_ 废话 fèihuà. "Well, I _don't_," Mal retorted, allowing a touch of annoyance to color his tone. "Some flight bot's got control, and I ain't able to maneuver or nothin'. What's your advice?"

He had to wait again as the Controller went through instructions for a series of other ships again. Finally, the Controller said, "274 Alpha, change frequency to 112.5."

_That's it?_ he thought incredulously. _Some irresponsible flight bot's got control of Serenity, and all the Tower's doin' about it is changing channels?_

. . .

"I'm thinking Geysir National Park, the Majestic Mountains, and the Ring of Fire."

Anatoly nodded enthusiastically, then checked himself. _He_ was supposed to be in charge. Wouldn't do to let Boromiro think he could run the show. "Don't forget Fuji-san. Take 'em past it for the front-row view. Then we bring them in to Secure Port, and let the bosses do their thing. Sound good?"

"Regular scenic tour."

"With a few twists," Anatoly amended.

"Let's bring them into atmo," Boromiro agreed. "Then the real fun begins."

. . .

"We've transferred you to a solo channel," the Controller said, breaking the silence.

_Great,_ Mal thought. _Singled out for special attention. _ That did not bode well. At the Alliance prison camp after Serenity Valley, getting singled out for special attention meant you were sure to get a beating.

"Roger that," Mal confirmed that he'd heard.

"Our first step will be to see if the flight bot flies you as per filed flight plan."

_Oh, shiny. Just gorram shiny._ 'Wait and see' was not the approach Mal would have taken. Wait and see if the gorram thing crashed his ship. Nope, not an appealing prospect.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Keep your hands off the controls, and report any changes."

The minutes ticked by, an agony of expectation for Mal. Nothing terrible was happening as of yet, but knowing that neither he nor the so-called Controller had any say in where the ship flew, and not doing nothin' about it, was nearly intolerable. His fingers twitched, eager to be doing something_._ _Anything_. Anything was better than _wait and see._

Serenity started to skim the upper reaches of Bernadette's atmo, and the fiery plasma of re-entry began to lick at the corners of the bridge window as Serenity's surface superheated.

"Buffer panels holding, Kaylee?" Mal inquired, more from a need to do _something._

"A-okay, Cap'n," Kaylee responded.

"Jayne." Mal spoke into the comm. "Check the cargo is strapped down properly, and secure any loose large items. Just in case." Mal was reluctant to make the request, but if things started to go bad, there wouldn't be time for that later.

"Just in case what?" Jayne asked suspiciously. Though Mal couldn't see him through the comm, he knew exactly what kind of facial expression went along with that tone from Jayne.

He was not interested in arguing the point with Jayne. "In case you want to keep your job. I don't pay you to question orders."

"You sayin' we're gonna have a rough landing, Cap?"

"No, I ain't sayin'. Just do it."

. . .

Ip and Simon were sitting in the passenger lounge when Jayne tore down the stairs like his pants were on fire.

"What's going on, Jayne?" Simon called as he barreled past.

"Gonna be a rough landing, Doc. Best secure everything in the infirmary, 马上 mǎshàng."

Simon and Ip exchanged a startled look, then immediately jumped up and dashed into the infirmary to secure the latches on the drawers and cabinets and make sure the autoclave and other medical and scientific equipment was securely stowed.

Jayne, meanwhile, was already racing around the cargo bay, checking the straps that held the cargo crates, stopping to tighten some of them.

"What's happening?" Ip asked Simon, as soon as they had the major items secured.

"I don't kn—"

"We're crashin'," Jayne informed them matter-of-factly as he flew past, headed toward the engine room to help Kaylee secure her tools and spare parts. "Best say your prayers, cause it ain't Wash at the helm this time. It's Mal."

Ip was unsure. Should he panic? Other than Jayne's flying visit, there was nothing to indicate that the ship was doing anything other than standard re-entry. Maybe Jayne was pulling his leg. On the other hand, he'd never seen Jayne move so fast, ever. Panic seemed to be in order.

"Relax, Ip," Simon said nervously, looking anything but relaxed himself. "We're not crashing."

Ip looked sharply at him.

"We're not," Simon repeated. Ip was not very reassured, especially when Simon qualified, "I _think_ we're not."

Simon looked anything but convinced himself, and remembering how Mal ordered everyone clear of the lower decks when they crash-landed on Ferdinand Moon, he suddenly grabbed his medkit and took the stairs to the upper level two at a time, with Ip trailing in his wake.

. . .

"Inara," Mal's voice sounded urgently through the comm. "You prep your shuttle for immediate departure. Take Ip and Simon and River with you."

Inara dropped the book she'd been reading and walked directly to the pilot seat of her shuttle. Not because she intended to follow Mal's orders, but because she needed to find out what in the worlds was going on. Wasn't this a routine landing?

Opening the comm channel, she heard the sound of disagreement on the bridge. Clearly River was objecting to Mal's plan, whatever it was. Mal hadn't cut off the mic.

"_Albatross, ain't no call for you to—"_

"_Can help."_

"_Gorram rules say Zoe gotta be the one in the co-pilot seat. Don't want to crash and die and have 'em cite me for havin' an unlicensed pilot at the controls."_

"_Can't call them 'controls' when they control nothing," _River pointed out pedantically. After a pause she added, _"It is unnecessary to worry about a hypothetical citation. Irrelevant if you're already dead."_

"Mal," Inara broke in, "what is wrong?"

"Nothin'," Mal lied unconvincingly.

"Tell me what's going on, Mal."

"Just prep the shuttle, Inara." She gave him a glare he couldn't see over the comm, but he reacted as if he had seen it. "Hope there ain't no call for it, but you could fly away, land safe, even if we don't."

"If _you_ don't? What is going on?"

"_Won't die."_ River's voice sounded exasperated.

"_Albatross, you just go on now. Go with Inara."_

"I'm not going anywhere, Mal, without more information."

"_Won't go." _ River's petulant voice indicated she was digging in her heels.

Mal heaved a big sigh. _"Have it your way, Albatross. Ain't no time for arguin'."_ There was no moving River in such circumstances. "Inara, get Ip and Simon, prep for departure on my signal—"

"Mal." When she had his attention, Inara continued, "Do you really think Simon would leave Kaylee and his sister behind, to save his own skin?" _I won't leave you, Mal._

"_Won't go."_

"Zoe'll take Kaylee and Jayne in Shuttle Two. River, too."

"_Will I, sir?" _ Zoe's voice sounded from farther away. _"You need me on the bridge. And you need Kaylee in the engine room."_

"_Don't want to be known as a baby-killer, Zoe."_

"Mal, tell me what is going on." Mal didn't answer, and Inara was getting upset. Was Serenity really crashing? "Why are you trying to send everyone away?" He still didn't explain, and now she was getting angry as well. What was this, some kind of ridiculous heroics? Sending everyone away and trying to rescue the ship single-handedly. "You don't have to go down with the ship, Mal."

"Yes, I do," he said, as if it were plain obvious truth, and no hope of changing it.

"Don't you dare say that!" What was the reason for this defeated, hopeless attitude? It was almost as bad as _'Everybody dies alone.' _ Was this Mal's overblown sense of nobility, kicking in _now?_ Sacrifice himself, that others might live. "I'm not leaving you alone, Mal."

"Inara, don't argue, just go—"

"Don't you dare, Mal."

"Inara—" There was a burst of fuzz as his sentence was interrupted by a communication from Space Traffic Control, and Mal cut off the internal comm.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

廢話 fèihuà [nonsense]

马上 mǎshàng [now]

* * *

_It's not Wash at the controls, this time. It's Mal. What's gonna happen? Share your thoughts._


	36. Chapter 36

Ends with a Horse, Part 18a

_Extreme measures as more things go wrong_

* * *

"247 Alpha, have you resolved your helm control issues?" the Space Traffic Controller asked.

_Weren't no gorram 'issues' until I tried to hand over control to y'all,_ was what Mal wanted to say. The petulant tone in his mind carried over into his voice as he answered out loud, "Flight bot's still controlling our helm."

"Switch to manual override."

The flight bot feature of the nav software had an override in case of emergency. Mal was of the opinion that _having no ruttin' idea who was flying his gorram boat_ qualified as an emergency, and he was glad Control finally concurred. "Switching," he repeated. To his crew he announced, "Everybody strap in. We're goin' manual, and it could be a bit rough."

. . .

"He's switching to manual override," Boromiro told Anatoly.

"Ha. Well, that won't work especially well." They exchanged a smug look. It wouldn't work at all: 代號 Dài Hào's agent used the passcodes to disable the emergency override.

"Yeah. Let him try."

. . .

It didn't work. It should have cut out the flight bot, and restored manual control, but it didn't do a gorram thing.

"Have you restored manual control of your helm?" the Tower asked.

"That's a negative," Mal replied, thoroughly disheartened. _你他媽的__天下__所有的__人都__該死__Nǐ tāmādē tiānxià suǒyǒu __de __rén dōu gāisǐ_.

. . .

The scenic tour was, literally, scenic. Boromiro flew them over Geysir National Park, the Majestic Mountains, and the Ring of Fire. Not that they would see much detail from their altitude, but still these were some of the most scenic parts of the planet of Bernadette. Anatoly was throwing out suggestions (he thought he was issuing orders), and Boromiro was cheerfully implementing the best of them. Controlling the flight bot was far more fun than the flight simulator, because the simulator wouldn't let you pull stunts like flying upside down, barrel rolls and loop-de-loops unless it was in aerobatics mode. It was just as much fun as playing the _Special Ops: Flight School_ video game when he was a kid.

So he flew the ship right over Bernadette's famous features—Fuji-san, Bancroft Meteor Crater, the Great Palisade, and into the sunset.

Anatoly interrupted his Zen flying moment. "Let's have some more fun." Without warning, he shoved Boromiro off the chair and sat down. He grabbed the yoke and pulled the ship into a sharp banking right turn.

"Hey, what are you doing? You're going counter to standard air traffic patterns."

Anatoly ignored him and kept flying.

"That's Tanaka MOA," Boromiro objected, as Anatoly directed the ship over a clearly marked restricted airspace. "It's restricted. Military base. You can't fly there."

Anatoly shot him a look. _Watch me._

Boromiro's general policy was to let Anatoly throw his weight around, while _he _kept his hands on the controls. It soothed Anatoly's ego to think that he always got his own way. It rankled him to have Anatoly grab the yoke and then proceed to get them in deep 拉屎 lāshǐ. As soon as Anatoly's attention shifted back to the flying, he in his turn pushed him out of the seat, and grabbed the yoke.

"喂 Wèi!"

There ensued a round of undignified shoving and pushing, as the two young men wrestled for dominance of the controls.

"Technical Cadets Tse and Janiewicz," the disembodied voice spoke sharply, "what is going on?"

Instant compliance. The Hands of Blue held the power. Anatoly stood up and straightened his tie. "A little glitch," Anatoly answered, with as much cocky assurance as he could muster. He was still a little winded from the wrestling match. Boromiro held his tongue.

"Well, _Glitch Tse_," responded the all-seeing voice, "tell Glitch Janiewicz to get his 屁股 pìgu back in the chair and land the target at Secure Port already."

Anatoly breathed in relief. _No serious consequences._

"And," the voice added, "Glitch Tse, as soon as this operation's over, report to Internal Affairs for debriefing."

"Yes, sir."

There was a long silence. Then Anatoly spoke. "See what happens when you don't listen to me, Boromiro?"

Boromiro snorted. "It's on you to explain what you were trying to do. I'd advise pleading technical incompetence if I were you. You never were all that good at the flight simulator—they'll believe you."

. . .

"_What the gorram hell—" _Mal thought, as Serenity suddenly swooped into a sickening dive. Ship's artificial gravity couldn't keep up with maneuvers like this, especially in atmo when there was real gravity to contend with. Plastic dinosaurs went skittering off the end of the control console, to join the coffee cups and writing styluses already rolling around on the floor. Mal was grateful he'd ordered everyone to strap in. The dive leveled off, but the ship banked hard to the right, sending the litter of mugs and dinos sliding across to the starboard side of the deck. Before they leveled off, the ship lurched to port, executing a sickeningly slow barrel roll, and sending the detritus cascading over all the surfaces of the bridge.

"What the 地狱 dìyù are you doing, 247 Alpha?" the Controller exclaimed, all semblance of official calm evaporating.

"Ain't nothin' _I'm_ doin'—what kind of loony 神经病 shén jīng bìng you got flyin' my boat?" Mal countered. He didn't have even a semblance of calm left to evaporate. Time like this, Wash woulda been exhibiting his trademark Zen-like calm, handling the crisis like the master flyer he was. Mal weren't no Wash. He simply didn't have it in him to sit there calmly with hand on yoke and drink a cup of tea, while some 疯了 fēngle maniac ploughed Serenity into a nice solid mountainside.

He was vaguely aware that they were violating restricted zones, military operations areas, and flying counter to traffic—mainly because every invisible line crossed triggered another gorram buzzer or alarm to sound, and the gorram cacaphony in the cockpit was driving him batty. But with the ship lurching and diving and rolling, he didn't exactly have the leisure to look out the window and take in the scenery. Couldn't even think straight.

"Kaylee! Is there any way in ruttin' hell we can shut off all them gorram alarms?"

To his surprise, Kaylee answered calmly, "Think I can work an override, Cap'n."

"On the alarm?"

"On everything. If we shut down—"

"If we shut down, we crash," he objected.

"—Shut down the mains, go to auxiliary only. Flight computer don't talk to the auxiliary system—had to jury-rig it that way, after the EMP fried the connection at Ferdinand. You'll have to fly completely by hand. Won't have the kind of power the mains provide, but it oughtta get around the flight bot."

"How much less power?"

"About sixty-five percent."

Trying to land with sixty-five percent power was going to be tricky. Serenity weren't no glider, and VTOL craft required substantial power for landing. How he wished Wash were at the helm. Zoe's stoicism, as she sat silently in the co-pilot seat, only told him that she was of the same mind. Wash's skills would make the difference between a safe landing and gracelessly ploughing into the ground nose first. 'Controlled flight into terrain' was how it was termed in the fatal accident investigation reports.

"I can help," River spoke.

He wished she could. But his hands were tied. Here in the Core, she had to be relegated to the position of observer, just when he really needed the talents of a real hotshot pilot. "Can't do it, River. Can't let an uncertified pilot fly the ship, here in the Core. Lose my license."

"Can't lose your license if you're dead," River countered.

It was too late to argue the point. "247 Alpha, you've restored control?" Tower asked hopefully. Mal noticed that Serenity's flight was suddenly a bit more even. With a surge of sanguine feeling, he tested the yoke, but found it still unresponsive.

"Negative," Mal responded. "Only way I see to restore control, is a complete shut down of main power and reboot."

"Shut down in atmo? You'll crash," Tower replied.

"Looks like I'm crashin' anyways," Mal replied, "'cause whoever's in control of the flight bot is clearly insane." _More insane than me, more insane than River. And that's sayin' something. _"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather crash her myself, than let some bot crash her for me." _And maybe, just maybe, I can get her on the ground in one piece._

"Now if you don't mind, I gotta focus on flyin' here," Mal told the Tower. "So long." He opened up the internal comm. "Everybody on the upper deck, and strap in good," Mal ordered. "Gonna be a rough landing."

. . .

"Told ya," Jayne pronounced smugly, as Ip and Simon, strapped into the seats in the dining lounge next to him, regarded him with a look of horror. "We're crashin'."

. . .

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glossary

代號 Dài Hào [code name]

_你他媽的__天下__所有的__人都__該死__Nǐ tāmādē tiānxià suǒyǒu __de __rén dōu gāisǐ__[__F- everyone in the universe to death __(F- the whole damn 'Verse)__]_

拉屎 lāshǐ [shit]

喂 Wèi [Hello! Hey]

屁股 pìgu [ass]

地狱 dìyù [hell]

神经病 shén jīng bìng [insane person]

疯了 fēngle [insane]

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_More coming soon...I appreciate your feedback._


	37. Chapter 37

Ends with a Horse, Part 18b

_Just get us on the ground…that part'll happen, pretty definitely._

* * *

Next to him, Zoe gave Mal a look as she adjusted her harness. _How rough, sir?_

_We won't die,_ he replied with his look. _I think._

"Glad you're feeling confident, sir," Zoe said aloud. They all wished for Wash's steady hand at the controls.

_Time to take the plunge, _Mal thought, then wondered at himself for his bad choice of words. To Kaylee he said, "Shut down the mains, and go to auxiliary power."

. . .

"Gone? What do you mean, gone?"

"I mean, the connection dropped. Completely."

"But they're still on our screen." Anatoly pointed to the blip.

"Well, yes, Anatoly, the planetary GPS system is still functioning." _Duh_. Boromiro rolled his eyes. "But that's not the signal from our flight bot. They're completely powered down."

"Powered down?"

"Yes. Engines off."

"Are they _insane?_ They'll crash."

. . .

"_High in the sunlit silence—"_ River was reciting that damned poem, and Mal couldn't help but recall Zoe's follow-up: _"You all know what sunlit silence means_... _Engine failure in atmo."_

At least all the gorram alarms had shut off.

_This is crazy. Absolutely crazy,_ Mal thought, as Serenity plummeted just like a downy feather wouldn't through Bernadette's atmo. It was the second-most terrifying planetary approach he'd ever made, but that was only because he'd survived the hell-bent spinning dive toward death on Ferdinand Moon—when Wash's last act of flying in the 'Verse had pulled them out of the death-dive just in time to glide into a crash landing. This was ever so slightly less terrifying, but not by much.

"Kaylee, if you love me, get me some auxiliary power now!" Mal shouted.

. . .

Kaylee didn't have time to cuss out the designers of Serenity's engine room for putting the main switch up high where she couldn't reach it. She used adrenaline-driven strength to shove a tool chest up under the gorram switch, reached up and flipped it. Engine room went black, because the dumb-ass designers had put the gorram light switch at the other freakin' end of the room, but this time she had a flashlight in the pocket of her coveralls. She leapt down from the chest right about the time the ship gave a sickening lurch downward, like the floor dropping too suddenly in an elevator, and missed her footing. Caught herself before she fell over, in about as graceless a move as ever a woman made, floated and hopped and lurched her way right on over to the auxiliary switches. The emergency lighting came up, but auxiliary power took a mite longer to kick in, and for seconds that felt like hours, the ship continued in free-fall.

. . .

When the auxiliary power finally came on, Mal remembered to breathe again, only then realizing that he hadn't been before. With only about two-thirds power, helm was sluggish as anything, but at least he had some semblance of control.

Mal jumped in startlement when the Controller's voice broke the silence. "247 Alpha, do you read?"

"Uh, yes, Tower. We're still flyin'." _Remember to breathe. Still flyin'._

"Got control of your helm?" Tower asked, not unkindly.

"Why, uh, yes—in a manner of speakin'. Auxiliary. Low power, manual control." _Breathe in. Breathe out. Keep flyin'._

"Firefly Serenity, descend and maintain level ten thousand," the Controller directed, as if this were a perfectly normal controlled landing.

"We're nearly at ten thousand feet right now, sir," Zoe informed him calmly, snapping Mal out of his state of shock.

He looked at the altimeter. Ten thousand feet. 天啊 Tiān ā, they had plummeted a good fifty thousand feet in their free-fall. _Breathe in. Breathe out._ With an eye on the artificial horizon, he pulled out the yoke to level their flight.

"Traffic at one o'clock, Serenity," the Tower said.

Traffic. Yeah. Mal looked through the window, spotted the traffic—a Blue Sun passenger ship—as it cut across their path, but _it_ was maintaining altitude, and they weren't, so there was no longer a chance of collision. "Traffic in sight, Tower," he reported. As he scanned the sky, he saw that they also seemed to have acquired a military escort—a couple of Norn-class armored fighter craft, no doubt joined their company a while back, when they were cheerfully violating military airspace.

"Traffic behind you, Serenity," Tower informed him, "overtaking."

He didn't have to wait long before Serenity was lapped by a fleet of Blue Sun transports—on their way up. Or maybe not, it was just that he—糟糕 zāogāo. "Unable to maintain altitude," he reported, edging the yoke up, checking the trim. The needle on the altimeter just continued its steady dip downwards.

"Are you able to climb?" Tower asked.

"Negative." Auxiliary power just didn't have enough oomph. Not with a full payload in the cargo bay.

"Descend to level six thousand," Tower ordered.

"Can do," Mal responded. _Boat won't go up, but surely it'll go down._

He must have spoken out loud, for River responded, "That part will happen, pretty definitely."

They had descended to eight thousand feet by this time, and Mal watched as they continued, right on through seven thousand, six thousand, five—该死 gāisǐ. Mal's attempts to level off were unsuccessful. Serenity's response to his pull on the yoke was feeble at best. He'd never felt her respond so sluggishly under his hand. Molasses didn't begin to describe it. "Unable to maintain six thousand, Tower. Request direct Shinjuku Spaceport."

Tower directed him in a series of descending turns, and Mal had a panoramic view of the disruption he'd caused to Bernadette's air traffic. Commercial and private spacecraft and aircraft of all descriptions were in holding patterns at higher altitudes, cleared out of Serenity's way, so that he could blunder his way down to the ground and crash his ship in full view of an audience of thousands.

"Firefly Serenity, proceed direct to Shinjuku," Tower ordered. Mal exhaled. Weren't much choice—Shinjuku Spaceport, a nice solid mountainside, or hell—wherever they were going, they were gonna get there directly. "Do you have the spaceport in sight?"

"Yes, I do," Mal reported, surprised to find himself nearly above the spaceport. Neatly lined up for a landing, he would say, if this were normal circumstances. Which it wasn't.

"Land at the Emergency Berth, if you are able," Tower directed, and Mal knew that all other traffic at the spaceport was being held up for him. He saw the clearly marked square perimeter of the berth, with the white cross and the character "急 jí" painted in red in the center. "Do you require a firetruck, foam, emergency services?"

"Uh, negative," Mal responded, hoping like hell he was correct. The Firefly shuddered, the engine clearly taking strain as Mal attempted a fully-laden VTOL landing with two-thirds power. Angle, airspeed, alignment…Mal abandoned the dials and tried to judge by feel, trying to factor in the delay in response to his touch that the low-power situation seemed to warrant. The ship descended by uneven lurches, with whining noises from the engine room and a massive shudder that rocked the entire frame of the vessel from stern to stem. Lurch at the wrong moment could still plough them straight into the tarmac. He took a chance, anticipated the touch-down, engaged the thrusters just a mite ahead of schedule, and Serenity settled lightly onto the landing pad with no more than a slight bump.

Mal breathed a sigh of relief, shutting his eyes. Ship was intact, all in one piece. They were alive. He breathed with it a moment, until Jayne's voice sounded in the comm, interrupting his thoughts.

"Cap, we still crashin'?"

"We've been on the ground for a full minute, Jayne," Zoe answered.

"Good. So we can unstrap ourselves then."

Mal felt River's shining, inquisitive eyes on him, and turned to her. He spoke as if continuing a routine flight-education speech. "And _that_ there," he told her, "was a perfect example of how _not_ to fly in controlled airspace."

. . .

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glossary

天啊 tiān ā [God]

糟糕 zāogāo [crap]

该死 gāisǐ [damn]

急 jí [emergency]

* * *

_A/N: Okay, that's it for now. Before you yell at me—at least I got the crew on the ground! I think this story will have another two, maybe three chapters. I will post them sometime after I get back from vacation. (They have been undergoing adjustment as the pieces of the next story begin to fall into place.) Meanwhile, about the landing: I have never landed a VTOL aircraft. Never even gone for a helicopter ride. I did research, and relied on a hair-raising story told to me by a friend who once flew in a horribly overloaded transport helicopter in mountainous terrain. But if anyone out there actually knows anything about landing a helicopter, or better yet a Harrier jet or Osprey, PM me—because ultimately a number of the details of this landing were guesswork, and I'd like to fix them if I got it all wrong. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoyed this latest chapter!_


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